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HOMER 


BY  THE 

RIGHT  HON.  W.  E.  GLADSTONE, 

HONORARY  STUDENT  OF  CHRIST  CHURCH. 


Those  oft  are  stratagems  which  errors  seem  ; 

Nor  is  it  Homer  nods,  but  we  that  dream." — Pope. 


NEW    YORK: 

D.     APPLETON    AND    COMPANY, 

I,    3,    AND    5    BOND    STREET. 

1886. 


PA 

■A037 


CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  pa:;b 

I. — HOMER    THE    MAN 5 

II.— THE    HOMERIC    QUESTION 17 

Section      I.— plots  of  the  poems  ...  17 

II.— AGAINST  the   SEPARATORS      .  29 
III. — WOLF,       AND      THE       TRANS- 
MISSION   BY   MEMORY .      .  38 

III. — HISTORY 46 

IV.— COSMOLOGY 54 

V. — GEOGRAPHY 57 

VI. — MYTHOLOGY,    OR    THE    OLYMPIAN    SYSTEM        .       .  65 

VII. — ETHNOLOGY 94 

VIII. — ETHICS    OF   THE   ACHAIAN    TIME IO4 

IX. — POLITY 113 

X. — EUROPE   AND   ASIA,    OR    TROJAN    AND   ACH.\1AN   .  121 

XI. — CHARACTERS 12/ 

XII. — ART,    AND    THE   ARTS I34 

XIII. — homer's    PLACE   AND    OFFICE   AS    A    POET.       .       .  I40 


H  O  M  E  R. 

CHAPTER    I. 

HOMER    THE    MAN. 

I.  Homer's  Unique  Position. — The  poems  of 
Homer  do  not  constitute  merely  a  great  item  of  the 
splendid  literature  of  Greece  ;  but  they  have  a  separate 
position,  to  which  none  other  can  approach.  They, 
and  the  manners  they  describe,  constitute  a  world  of 
their  own ;  and  are  severed  by  a  sea  of  time,  whose 
breadth  has  not  been  certainly  measured,  from  the 
firmly-set  continent  of  recorded  tradition  and  con- 
tinuous fact.  In  this  sea  they  lie,  as  a  great  island. 
And  in  this  island  we  find  not  merely  details  of  events, 
but  a  scheme  of  human  life  and  character,  complete 
in  all  its  parts.  We  are  introduced  to  man  in  every 
relation  of  which  he  is  capable ;  in  every  one  of  his 
arts,  devices,  institutions ;  in  the  entire  circle  of  his 
experience.  There  is  no  other  author,  whose  case  is 
analogous  to  this,  or  of  whom  it  can  be  said  that  the 
study  of  him  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  literary  criticism, 
but  is  a  full  study  of  life  in  every  one  of  its  depart- 
ments. To  rescue  this  circle  of  studies  from  inadequate 
conceptions,  and  to  lay  the  ground  for  a  true  idea  of 
them,  I  have  proposed  to  term  them  Homerology.  Of 
this  Homerology,  I  shall  now  endeavour  to  present 
some  of  the  first  elements  in  their  simplest  torm.  And 
at  the  threshold,  postponing  for  the  moment  our  notice 
of  the  controversies  involved  in  what  is  termed  the 
Homeric  question,  let  us  see  how  far  we  can  acquire 
an  idea  of  the  poet  himself,  and  the  conditions  under 
which  he  lived. 


6  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

2.  Homer  his  own  Witness.— When  we  use 
the  woid  Homer,  we  do  not  mean  a  person  histori- 
cally known  to  us,  like  Pope  or  Milton.  We  mean 
in  the  main  tl-e  author,  whoever  or  whatever  he  was, 
of  the  wonderful  poems  called  respectively,  not  by 
the  author,  but  by  the  world,  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey.  His  name  is  conventional,  and  its  sense  in 
etymology  is  not  very  different  from  that  which  would 
be  conveyed  by  our  phrase,  "  the  author."  This  is  a 
Primer  of  Homer.  That  is  to  say,  it  aims  at  giving 
elementary  knowledge  respecting  him  and  the  works 
with  which  his  name  is  coupled.  In  such  a  design, 
it  is  requisite  above  all  to  let  the  reader  understand 
that  we  know  nothing  either  definite  or  certain  respect- 
ing Homer,  unless  in  so  far  as  it  can  be  gathered 
from  the  poems  he  composed.  Yet  they  very 
rarely  use  the  first  person, — only  once  in  a  passage 
of  any  importance ;  and  exclusively  in  invocations  to 
the  Muse  (//.  ii.  424-93) ;  so  that  they  convey  no  direct 
information  whatever  about  the  bard.  It  does  not 
follow  that  our  indirect  knowledge  must  be  small  or 
untrustworthy.  •  Great  artists  may  be  knowable  from 
their  works  ;  and  there  is  a  singular  transparency  in 
the  mind,  as  there  is  also  in  the  limpid  language 
of  Homer.  Old  as  he  is,  the  comprehensive  and 
systematic  study  of  him  is  still  young.  It  had 
hardly  begun  before  the  nineteenth  century.  With 
the  primary  source  of  information  found  in  his  text, 
we  have  to  combine  two  others:  (i)  the  scattered 
notices  supplied  by  ancient  tradition,  and  (2)  the 
valuable  and  still  growing  illustrations  furnished  by 
the  study  of  language,  and  by  the  discoveries,  and 
learned  study  of  ancient  remains. 

3.  Our  Earliest  View  of  Him. — At  the  first 
dawn  of  the  historic  period,  we  find  the  poems  estab- 
lished in  popular  renown;  and  so  prominent,  that  a 
school  of  minstrels  takes  the  name  of  Hojnei'idcB  from 
making  it  their  business  to  preserve  and  to  recite  them. 


I.]  HOMER  THE  MAJV.  7 

Still,  the  question  whether  the  poems  as  we  have  them 
can  be  trusted,  whether  they  present  substantially  the 
character  of  what  may  be  termed  original  documents, 
is  one  of  great  but  gradually  diminishing  difficulty.  It 
IS  also  of  importance,  because  of  the  nature  of  their 
contents.  In  the  first  place,  they  give  a  far  greater 
amount  of  information,  than  is  to  be  found  in  any 
other  literary  production  of  the  same  compass.  In 
the  second  place,  that  information,  speaking  of  it 
generally,  is  to  be  had  nowhere  else.  In  the  third 
place,  it  is  information  of  the  utmost  interest,  and 
even  of  great  moment.  It  introduces  to  us,  in  the 
very  beginnings  of  their  experience,  the  most  gifted 
people  of  the  world,  and  enables  us  to  judge  how 
they  became  such  as  in  later  times  we  know  them ; 
how  they  bogan  to  be  fitted  to  discharge  the  splendid 
part,  allotted  to  them  in  shaping  the  destinies  of  the 
world.  And  this  picture  is  exhibited  with  such  a 
fulness  both  of  particulars  and  of  vital  force,  that 
perhaps  never  in  any  country  has  an  age  been  so 
completely  placed  upon  record.  Finally,  amidst 
the  increase  of  archaic  knowledge  on  all  sides,  we 
begin  to  find  a  multitude  of  points  of  contact  between 
the  Homeric  poems  and  the  primitive  history  of 
the  world,  as  it  is  gradually  revealed  by  records, 
monuments,  and  language  ;  so  that  they  are  coming 
more  and  more  to  constitute  an  important  factor  in 
the  formation  of  that  history. 

4,  Subsidiary  Testimony. — There  are  indeed 
traditions,  and  there  are  fragmentary  remains  in  verse, 
ascribed  to  his  brethren  in  art  or  to  himself,  about 
Homer  and  about  the  subjects  of  his  poems.  But 
there  is  not  one  of  these  which  we  can  trace  with  cer- 
tainty to  the  date  of  the  poems,  still  less  of  the  occur- 
rences set  forth  in  them.  They  are  such,  in  amount 
and  in  consistency,  as  to  warrant  the  belief  that  they 
have  a  solid  substratum  of  truth ;  but  we  cannot  fix 
precisely  either  their   oudine  or  their  details.      We 


8  HOMER,  [CHAP, 

cannot  trace  them  even  orally,  far  less  in  a  written 
form,  up  to,  or  near  to,  such  a  point  as  to  give  them 
anything  like  the  character  of  contemporary  evidence 
about  Homer,  given  from  without.  These  traditions 
and  remains  make  their  appearance,  for  the  most  part, 
as  already  subsisting  in  the  first  beginnings  of  the 
regular  history  of  Greece  ;  but  Homer  and  Troy  lie 
far  back  in  the  prehistoric  period,  the  period  during 
which  men  had  not  come  to  the  use  of  certain,  definite, 
and  continuous  records. 

5.  Due  Reserve  in  Judgment. — Much  of  what 
the  text  contains  is  direct  information,  but  much  also 
is  only  suggestive.  It  would  be  inconvenient,  in  a 
work  of  this  kind,  to  load  every  sentence  with  quali- 
fications. Better  that  it  should  be  understood  from 
the  outset  that,  in  what  is  called  the  Homeric  ques- 
tion, the  propositions  set  forth  cannot  claim  an  historic 
certainty,  but  are  given  as  rationally  deducible  from  the 
study  of  the  text,  and  from  comparison  with  the  studies 
which  former  generations  have  bestowed  upon  it.  The 
authority  of  past  generations,  however,  is  not  so  high 
in  a  case  of  this  kind,  as  in  many  others.  For,  in 
former  times.  Homer  has  been  simply  enjoyed  as  a 
great  poet,  rather  than  examined.  Even  now  the 
work  of  extracting  and  methodising  the  contents  of 
the  poems,  so  far  as  they  are  capable  of  being  viewed 
in  the  light  of  facts,  has  not  been  fully  accomplished. 

6.  The  Bard  of  the  Heroic  Age. — We  learn 
from  the  poems  that,  even  before  the  war  of  Troy, 
the  profession  of  the  minstrel  had  become  an  object 
of  general  interest,  and  had  thus  early  taken  its  place 
m  the  public  competitions,  which  were  of  high  na- 
tional importance  among  the  later  Greeks.  For,  in 
the  catalogue  of  the  Greek  or  Achaian  army,  Homer 
finds  it  convenient  to  mark  the  town  of  Dorion,  part 
of  the  dominions  of  Nestor,  as  the  place  where  the 
Muses  punished  Thamuris  the  Thracian,  for  having 
boasted  that  he  would  beat  them,  goddesses  though 


I.]  HOMER  THE  MAN.  9 

they  were,  if  they  entered  the  lists  against  him.  For 
this  offence,  as  he  was  on  his  way  to  a  match  of  this 
kind,  they  deprived  him  of  the  gift  of  song.  Nothing 
could  more  clearly  denote  the  higli  position  of  the 
bard  as  such,  than  its  having  tempted  Thamuris  into 
this  presumption.  The  representation  is  sustained 
by  all  the  other  notes  in  the  poems.  The  Bard  was  an 
essential  member  of  the  courts  of  princes,  a  trusted 
friend  and  counsellor  of  their  families.  His  person  had 
even  a  kind  of  sacredness  attaching  to  it,  apparently 
beyond  that  of  the  seer  or  prophet.  No  priest,  and  no 
minstrel,  is  ever  engaged  in  the  military  service  of  the 
Homeric  age.  His  office  indeed  implied  more  than 
the  possession  of  a  mere  human  gift :  he  habitually 
sang  by  an  inspiration  from  on  high.  It  was  his 
duty  to  descant  upon  the  freshest  and  most  interesting 
subjects  :  and  the  events  at  Troy  were  reckoned  to 
have  pre-eminent  attractions,  even  at  the  distant  court 
of  Alkinoos,  before  Odusseus  had  reached  his  island 
home.  The  profession  of  the  Bard  ranked  among  the 
standing  professions  of  the  age.  These  collectively 
supplied  the  social  wants  of  man;  but  the  special,  dis- 
tinctive office  of  the  bard  was  to  give  delight.  In 
cases,  again,  of  domestic  mourning,  the  bards  led  the 
laments  over  the  dead  :  possibly  gathering  for  such  an 
occasion  from  allied  houses,  for  on  the  great  celebra- 
tion of  the  obsequies  of  Hector,  and  in  this  instance 
only,  bards  are  historically  mentioned  in  the  plural 
number.  It  must  be  added  that,  besides  supplying 
song,  the  minstrel  had  the  humbler  yet  joyful  office  of 
accompanying  the  dance ;  and  he  appears  before  us  in 
this  capacity  upon  the  Shield  of  .\chiiles. 

7.  Probable  Position  of  Homer. — This  Bard     ^ 
of  the  poems  is   commonly  attached  to   a  parlicularj^l^ 
reigning  family.     In  the  case  of  Thamuris  (//.  ii.  596)'  J 
such  a  connection,  though  not  named,  is  implied.   But 
as  we  thus  hear  of  the  itinerancy  of  a  stationary  bard, 
so  there  may  well  have  been  itinerants  by  profession. 


lo  HOMER^  [CHAP. 

This  appears  to  be  the  life  which  we  may  reasonably 
suppose  Homer  to  have  followed,  on  such  grounds  as 
follow  :  (i)  Both  because  his  works  have  survived 
the  action  of  time  and  its  revolutions,  which  have 
obliterated  every  contemporaiy  production,  and  on 
account  of  the  surpassing  nature  of  the  works,  we 
must  assign  to  their  author  a  decided  pre-eminence 
among  the  men  of  his  class  and  time.  This  may 
render  it  questionable  whether  he  could  have  been 
tied  down  as  a  family  retainer  to  a  narrow  corner 
of  a  narrow  country.  (2)  A  connection  with  a  par- 
ticular family  would  almost  certainly  have  left  signs  of 
it  upon  the  face  of  the  poems.  But,  while  the  poems 
are  intensely  national,  they  are  nowhere  sectional. 
(3)  His  works  show  an  acquaintance  with  geography, 
which  was  evidently  for  the  most  part  founded  on 
personal  inspection,  and  presumes  his  free  movement 
over  the  circle  of  Achaian  experience.  And  he  refers 
specially  to  the  effect  of  travel  in  enriching  and  quick- 
ening the  mind. 

8.  Tradition  of  his  Blindness. — It  is  supposed 
by  many  that  the  poet  was  blind.  In  support  of  this 
idea  it  is  noticed  that  he  touches  with  a  peculiar 
tenderness  of  sympathy  the  case  of  Demodokos,  the 
Bard  of  Alkinoos  in  the  Odyssey  ;  whom  the  Muse, 
loving  him  right  well,  deprived  of  the  sense  of  sight, 
but  endowed  with  the  sweet  gift  of  song.  A  tradition, 
perhaps  true,  perhaps  mythical,  grew  up,  of  Homer's 
tilindness  ;  and  it  was  handed  on,  in  a  passage  of 
singular  pathos,  forming  part  of  one  of  the  Hymns, 
which  is  ascribed  by  Thucydides,  but  beyond  doubt 
wrongly  ascribed,  to  the  author  of  the  poems  himself. 
What  may  be  asserted  with  confidence  is  that  Homer, 
if  blind  at  all,  was  only  blind  in  later  life.  For,  as 
he  is  the  most  objective  of  all  poets,  so  it  is  especially 
the  imagery  of  sight,  which  supplies  him  with  a  chief 
part  of  his  inexhaustible  resources.  His  sense  of  light, 
of  form,  and  of  motion  was  beyond  anything  vigorous 


I.]  HOMER  THE  MAN.  ii 

and  prolific;  and  though  his  percepiions  of  special 
colour  were  very  indeterminate,  yet  even  colour  has 
supplied  him  with  a  number  of  effective  touches, 
largely  in  excess  of  what  other  poets  generally  have 
been  able  to  obtain  from  it. 

9.  Itinerant,  but  in  his  Country  only.^ — We 
are  then  probably  to  conceive  of  Homer  as  of  a 
Bard  who  went  from  place  to  place  to  earn  his  bread 
by  his  profession,  to  exercise  liis  knowledge  in  his  gift 
of  song,  and  to  enlarge  it  by  an  ever-active  observation 
of  nature,  and  experience  of  men.  There  is  no  sign, 
anywhere  in  the  poems,  of  his  having  had  living  per- 
sonal contact  with  foreigners,  except  individually,  or  of 
his  having  visited  foreign  lands.  Although  it  is  plain 
that  he  had  busied  himself  with  efforts  to  learn  all  he 
could  about  these,  he  seems  to  anticipate  and  realise 
in  himself  that  later  Hellenic  spirit,  which  divided  the 
world  into  Greeks  and  barbarians,  and  to  keep  an 
opaque  curtain  hung  all  round,  or  an  indefinite 
distance  interposed,  between  his  own  dear  people 
and  other  races  and  empires,  which  at  the  time,  as  we 
now  know,  bore  the  most  conspicuous  parts  in  the 
drama  of  human  history.  It  is  plain  that  he  lived, 
and  practised  his  art,  within  the  limits  of  his  country. 
But  what  was  his  country  ? 

10.  Was  he  an  Asiatic  Greek  ? — On  all  hands 
it  will  be  admitted  that  Homer  sang  to  Greeks.  Nor 
does  any  one  suppose  that  he  sang  to  Greeks  of  the 
Italian,  or  other  western,  colonies.  It  has  however 
been  extensively  believed,  that  he  was  a  Greek  of  Asia 
Minor.  And  as  there  were  no  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor 
at  the  time  of  the  Trojan  war,  nor  until  a  wide  and 
searching  revolution  in  the  peninsula  had  substituted 
Dorian  manners  for  those  of  the  earlier  Achaian  age, 
which  Homer  sang,  this  belief  involves  the  further 
proposition  that  the  poet  was  severed  by  a  consider- 
able interval  of  time  from  the  subjects  of  his  vers?. 
The  last-named    opinion   depends   very  much  upon 

2 


12  HOMER.  [chap. 

the  first ;  and  the  first  chiefly,  if  not  wholly,  upon  a 
perfectly  vague  tradition,  which  has  no  pretence  to  an 
historical  character. 

11.  Why  so  Reputed. — The  manners  belonging 
to  the  age  of  the  Trojan  War  were  swept  violently  out 
of  Greece  by  the  Dorian  revolution,  after  a  period  of 
uncertain  length,  commonly  taken  at  eighty  years. 
Long  after  this  revolution,  civilisation  had  to  make  a 
new  beginning  in  the  Greek  Peninsula.  Homer  if 
known  there  before,  yet  during  the  troubled  time,  and 
under  a  strong  barbarising  influence,  must  in  all  like- 
lihood have  been  swept  away  by  the  flood.  It  is  an 
acknowledged  proposition  that  the  emigrants  from 
Greece  who  settled  in  Asia  Minor,  carried  with  them 
the  remains  of  the  anterior  civilisation,  and  became 
for  some  ages,  in  their  new  seats,  its  main  representa- 
tives. If  the  poems  of  Homer  existed  at  the  time, 
there  can  be  no  room  for  doubt  that  they  shared  the 
destiny  of  the  surrounding  elements  of  culture.  From 
the  period  of  the  settlements  in  Asia  civil  and  social 
progress  seem  to  have  been  continuous  within  them. 
We  now  find  ourselves  upon  the  lines  of  established 
polity,  and,  after  a  while,  of  regular  record.  It  is 
therefore  from  this  era  and  this  region,  that  we  imme- 
diately derive  our  Homer  :  it  is  from  thence  that  he  was 
imported,  or  reimported,  into  Greece.  Nothing  then 
can  be  more  easy  than  to  account  for  the  belief  that 
Homer  was  an  Asiatic  Greek.  For  the  Greeks  of  Asia 
were  those  who  could  produce  the  oldest  recorded  title 
to  claim  the  poems  as  their  own.  It  was  disputed 
indeed,  as  by  Athens  and  by  Argos  :  but  on  the  whole 
it  vaguely  prevailed  ,;  and  it  now  awaits  the  judgment 
of  an  age  distinguished  by  increased  care  and  enlarged 
advantages  m  critical  inquiry. 

12.  Keasons  in  Disproof. — The  question  then 
has  to  be  decided,  in  the  absence  of  all  really  historic 
testimony,  by  the  internal  evidence  of  the  poems. 
This  evidence,  I  venture  to  say,  strongly  supports  the 


I.]  HOMER  THE  MAN.  13 

belief  that  Homer  was  an  European,  and  if  an  Euro- 
pean, then  certainly  also  an  Achaian  Greek  :  a  Greek, 
that  is  to  say,  of  the  pre-Doric  period,  when  the 
Achaian  name  prevailed,  and  principally  distinguished 
the  race.  Among  the  presumptions,  which  tend  to 
show  that  he  was  not  of  the  Doric  time  or  the  Asiatic 
region,  are  these  : — 

(i.)  The  Achaian  name  became  insignificant  in  the 
Doric  time,  and  never  found  its  way  into  Asia  ;  but  it 
may  justly  be  called  the  great  national  name  through- 
out the  poems. 

(2.)  The  Dorian  name,  if  predominant  in  the  Greek 
peninsula  at  the  period  when  the  poems  were  com- 
posed, would  naturally  find  an  important  place  in 
tliem.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  but  twice  used,  and  is 
wholly  insignificant. 

(3.)  A  poet  of  Asia,  or  of  the  Dorian  epoch,  would 
probably  have  called  the  pre-Doric  Greeks  by  the 
race-name  of  Hellenes,  which  must  by  that  time  have 
been  widely  spread  ;  but  this  name  is  hardly  found  in 
the  poems,  and  it  has  not  yet  arrived  at  an  established 
meaning. 

(4.)  The  lonians  attained,  in  Asia  Minor,  to  a  very 
high  position,  and  traces  of  this  fact  would  surely 
have  been  found  in  a  poet  of  their  blood.  But  the 
lonians  of  the  poems  are  entirely  in  the  background, 
and  may  even  appear  to  be  disparaged,  as  a  soldiery,  by 
the  epithet  "  tunic-trailing,"  which  is  the  only  one 
applied  to  them. 

(5.)  At  the  period  of  the  Greek  migrations  to  Asia, 
the  /Eolian  name  was  soon  established,  and  became 
historical  as  a  great  race-name.  There  is  no  such  name 
in  the  poems  ;  but  only  the  name  of  Aiolid,  a  patrony- 
mic. Aiolos  is,  in  Achaian  Greece,  not  the  eponymist 
of  a  tribe  or  race,  but  only  the  (real  or  mythical) 
ancestor  of  a  family. 

(6.)  In  the  Asiatic  Aiolis  was  included  the  plain  of 
Troy.     Had   Homer  sung  in   that  region,  to  people 


14  HOMER,  [CHAP. 

familiar  with  the  local  features,  he  would  have  described 
them  with  thorough  accuracy.  But  his  account  of  the 
plain,  though  full  of  characteristic  points,  has  not  as  yet 
been  reduced  to  a  complete  consistency  with  those 
features. 

(7.)  Athens  hospitably  entertained  the  fugitives  from 
the  Dorian  conquest,  and  would  naturally  stand 
high  with  a  bard  belonging  to  their  race.  But  the 
place  of  Athens  in  the  action  of  the  Iliad  is  very 
secondary  :  and  the  single  passage,  in  w^hich  it  is  pane- 
gyrised, is  one  of  the  few  widely  held  to  be  spurious. 

(8.)  The  notes  of  personal  and  local  colouring  drawn 
from  the  peninsula  in  the  Greek  Catalogue,  both  in- 
land and  along  the  coast,  are  numerous  and  vivid. 
But,  in  the  description  of  the  Asiatic  coast  south  of 
Troas,  and  reaching  to  Lycia,  there  are  but  three 
epithets  belonging  to  natural  features ;  these  three  all 
refer  to  objects  on  the  coast,  not  inland,  and  there  is 
only  a  single  notice  of  a  town  or  settlement.  He 
could  hardly  have  been  a  native  of  the  country,  with 
which  he  shows  so  inferior  an  acquaintance. 

(g.)  Mr.  Wood,  assuming  that  the  Zephuros  of 
Homer  corresponds  with  our  west  wind,  defends 
the  declaration  of  the  poet  that  it,  with  Boreas,  blows 
from  Thrace,  by  saying  it  is  a  westerly  wind  as 
respects  Ionia.  But  the  Zephuros  of  Homer  is  a 
north-west,  not  a  west  wind,  and  the  poet  (//.  ix„  5)  is 
describing  its  effect  on  the  ^gean  Sea  :  he  therefore 
requires  no  defence,  and  raises  no  presumption 
respecting  Ionia. 

(10.)  In  IL  iv.  52,  Hefa  is  made  to  suppose  the 
possible'  destruction  of  Argos,  Sparta,  and  Mukenai. 
From  this  passage  it  is  argued  that  the  poet  knew  of 
th-e  Doric  revolution,  which  transferred  the  seat  of 
power  from  Mukenai  to  Argos.  But  that  revolution 
elevated  Sparta,  left  Argos  as  it  was,  and  did  not 
destro}^  if  it  depressed,  Mukenai. 

(11.)  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  strange  mdeed  if  a 


I.]  HOMER  THE  MAN:  15 

poet,  who  had  witnessed  so  vast  a  convulsion,  com- 
posed 27,700  Hnes  with  no  other  or  clearer  allusion 
to  it  than  this,  which  is  most  faint,  and  indeed  very 
equivocal. 

(12.)  The  Hymn  to  Apollo,  cited  by  Thucydides, 
which  represents  Homer  as  dwelling  in  Chios,  is 
demonstrably  not  the  work  of  Homer;  and  only 
expresses  that  later  tradition  as  to  his  birth  and 
habitat^  which  did  beyond  doubt  come  extensively 
into  vogue. 

(13.)  The  twentieth  Iliad  contains  a  prophecy  that 
descendants  of  Aineias,  yet  unborn,  should  reign  over 
the  Trojans.  This  is  perfectly  in  harmony  with  the 
supposition  that  the  poet  flourished  between  the 
siege  of  Troy  and  the  Dorian  Revolution ;  and  that 
he  may  have  seen  more  than  one  generation  after 
the  war,  born  and  reigning  in  Troas. 

(14.)  The  traditions  found  in  Homer,  which  relate 
to  Asia  Minor,  are  such  as  might  easily  have  been 
gathered  from  report.  For  example,  silver  was  found 
in  Chalube  near  the  Euxine  (and  it  is  still  found 
there);  and  the  Phrygians,  aided  by  Priam,  had  fought 
with  the  Amazons  on  the  River  Sangarios.  Even  so 
he  knows  the  wealth  of  Egyptian  Thebes,  names  for  it 
a  king  and  a  queen,  and  gives  an  account  of  the 
trans-Egyptian  Pygmseans,  Compare  with  these 
slight  notices  the  wealth  of  his  legends  from  within 
the  Greek  peninsula. 

(15.)  In  the  later  mythology  of  Greece,  we  find 
copious  legends,  e.g.  those  touching  Kubele  and  the 
Kabeiroi,  which  were  derived  from  Phrygia.  This  is 
readily  explained  by  the  contact  of  the  Asiatic  Greeks 
with  that  country.  But  there  is  no  trace  of  these 
legends  in  Homer.  It  is  probable,  then,  that  he  did 
not  share  that  contact. 

(16.)  But  the  argument  which  is  the  strongest,  and 
which  I  cannot  but  deem  in  itself  irrefragable,  is  one 
that  cannot  be  fully  appreciated  except  upon  a  close 

2* 


i6  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

and  minute  study  of  the  poems.  It  is  that  the  men, 
the  manners,  the  institutions  that  Homer  sings  of 
with  such  an  intimacy  of  living  familiarity,  such  a 
prevaiUng  sense  of  nearness,  were  essentially  Achaian, 
ceased  to  exist,  in  their  Achaian  form,  upon  the  Dorian 
Revolution,  and  could  hardly  have  been  reproduced 
by  a  poet  remote  from  them  in  time,  especially  when 
there  were  no  aids  of  literary  and  historical  record. 
For  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  poems  are 
undoubtedly  anterior  to  the  use  of  writing  for  any  of 
these  purposes. 

13.  Conclusion.  His  Name. — It  appears  then 
easy  to  understand  why  Homer  should  have  been 
widely  (though  not  uniformly)  supposed  to  belong  to 
that  Hellenic  region  in  which  he  first,  so  to  speak,  set 
his  foot  on  dry  ground ;  in  which,  that  is  to  say,  his 
poems  had  their  earliest  contact  with  palpable  and 
continuous  history.  But  also  not  difficult  to  see  that 
he  was  a  Greek  of  the  Achaian  mould,  and  therefore 
of  the  Achaian  period,  and  with  his  seat  in  the 
peninsula. 

And,  this  being  so,  it  appears  not  unreasonable  to 
picture  to  ourselves  the  Father  of  all  known  poetry 
traversing  the  hills  and  vales  of  Greece,  from  court  to 
court,  from  festival  to  festival,  in  free  communion  with 
nature,  in  large  observation  of  man,  and  in  the  con- 
stant practice  of  the  glorious  art,  which  requited  hos- 
pitality with  the  delight  of  song.  It  should  however 
be  observed,  that  of  his  real  name  we  have  no  record 
whatever.  Like  to  Poietes,  the  Maker  or  Poet,  as 
he  was  called,  by  way  of  homage  to  his  paramount  ex- 
cellence, m  later  times,  is  Homeros,  the  Fitter.  The 
word  may  have  been  suggested  by  the  single  passage 
of  the  Odyssey,  in  which  we  have  the  kindred  verb 
homereuein  {Od.  xvi.  468),  used  to  describe  the  meet- 
ing together  of  persons  from  a  distance.  There  is  pro- 
bably no  other  instance  of  a  name  thus  indisputably 
unauthentic,  which  is  now  so  inextricably  welded  into 


J  I.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION:  17 

the  mind  and  memory  of  man,  that  if  by  any  accident 
the  true  name  could  be  discovered,  it  would  scarcely 
have  a  chance  of  displacing  the  Active  one. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE    HOMERIC    QUESTION. 

The  controversies  summed  up  under  the  name  of  the 
"  Homeric  Question  "  cannot  be  passed  by  even  in 
an  elementary  work ;  but  I  shall  endeavour  to  be  as 
little  technical  as  may  be.     They  involve  :  — 

1.  The  unity  of  authorship  for  the  Iliad. 

2.  The  unity  of  authorship  for  the  Odyssey. 

3.  The  unity  of  authorship  for  the  two  jointly. 

4.  The  general  purity  and  soundness  of  the  text. 
Of  these  tiie  first,  as  distinct  from  the  others,  carries 

us  over  ground  appropriate  to  my  design;  for  the  frame- 
work cannot  be  severed  from  the  substance  and  merits 
of  the  work.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the  third. 
The  second,  though  it  falls  within  the  scope  of  the 
sceptical  argument,  is  so  little  contested  that  this  point 
need  not  be  dwelt  on  at  much  length.  Under  the 
fourth  head  I  shall  only  notice  the  Wolfian  attack, 
and  the  subject  of  transmission  by  memory,  it  being 
my  purpose  to  give  the  reader  as  much  of  a  living 
Homer  himself  as  possible,  and  as  little  of  what  is 
only  about  Homer. 

Section  I. — Plots  of  the  Poems. 

I.  The  Title  of  Iliad  a  Misnomer.— The  plot 
of  the  Iliad  is  one  of  the  capital  subjects,  not  yet 
thoroughly  explored,  to  which  the  attention  of  every 
ijtudent  should  be  directed.  Much  criticism  aimed  at 
It  has  really  been  founded  on  the  tide,  rather  than  on 
the  poem.     It  is  hardly  fortunate;    for  it  draws  otf 


i8  HOMER,  [CHAP. 

attention  from  the  real  subject,  which  is  the  Wrath  of 
Achilles.  With  the  beginning  of  this  wrath  it  begins, 
and  with  the  cessation  it  ends.  The  war  is  taken  out 
of  its  normal  course  by  the  demand  of  Chruses  the 
priest  for  the  restoration  of  his  daughter  ;  it  is  replaced, 
after  the  disturbance,  with  the  close  of  the  obsequies 
of  Hector.  The  poem  is  properly  a  personal  poem  ; 
but  upon  one  stupendous  character  is  hung  a  tissue  of 
action,  which  gives  it  the  necessary  breadth,  and 
stamps  it  as  among  all  human  productions  perhaps 
the  most  intensely  national. 

2.  Opening  of  the  Terrestrial  Plot. — In  a 
division  of  booty,  such  as  regularly  took  place  on  the 
capture  of  a  town,  Chruseis,  the  daughter  of  a  priest 
of  Apollo,  has  been  appropriated  to  Agamemnon,  the 
leader  of  the  host.  The  father  demands  restitution, 
which  is  refused  by  tlie  possessor  of  the  prize. 
Vengeance  is  invoked,  and  the  god  sends  a  plague 
among  the  army.  Achilles  causes  the  general  Assembly 
to  be  summoned,  and  appeals  to  Calchas  the  augur 
to  declare  the  cause  of  the  calamity.  Calchas  pro- 
claims it  to  be  the  capture  and  detention  of  Chruseis. 
After  a  fierce  debate,  Agamemnon  the  king  announces 
that  he  will  restore  the  maid,  but  will  appropriate 
Briseis,  the  prize  of  Achilles,  in  her  stead.  Achilles 
is  warned  from  heaven  not  to  lay  hands  on  him;  and 
the  double  transference  takes  effect.  Achilles  then 
betakes  himself  to  his  mother  Thetis  ;  and  she  obtains 
from  Zeus  an  engagement,  that  the  Trojans  shall  have 
the  upper  hand  in  the  war  until  justice  shall  be  done, 
and  due  honour  paid  to  her  son.  Thus  the  terrestrial 
scheme  of  the  poem  is  fairly  launched. 

3.  The  Celestial  Plot.— But  it  has  also  a  celestial 
scheme.  A  persistent  controversy  in  the  council  of 
Olumpos  accompanies  the  struggle  upon  earth,  in 
which  the  several  deities  take  part,  mainly  according  to 
their  ethnical  affinities.  Poseidon,  who  has  suffered 
wrong    in    Troy  from    Laomedon,    Hera,    the    great 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION:  19 

national  divinity  of  the  Greeks,  Athene,  the  personal 
protectress  of  Achilles,  of  Odusseus,  and  of  Diomed 
(both  these  goddesses  having  also  a  private  grudge)  of 
themselves  suffice  to  give  a  preponderance  against 
Troy.  But  the  cause  is  fundamentally  righteous  ;  and 
Zeus,  the  supreme  representative  of  deity,  cannot 
contravene  it,  although  he  greatly  regards  the  known 
piety  of  Hector,  leader  of  the  Trojan  forces.  The 
gross  wrong  done  to  Achilles  is  artfully  made  use  of, 
to  place  the  Sire  of  gods  and  men  for  the  time  on  the 
other  side  :  and  with  him  Apollo,  who  is  the  only 
remaining  deity  of  the  first  rank,  and  who  invariably 
reflects  his  will.  Such  is  the  point  of  departure  for 
the  celestial,  or  Olympian  plot ;  and,  to  mark  it  suffi- 
ciently, means  are  at  once  found  to  introduce  us  to  a 
remarkable  scene,  which  exhibits  the  converse,  ban- 
quet, and  course  of  daily  life  among  the  gods. 

4.  The  Second  Assembly  and  the  Array. — 
Agamemnon,  receiving  through  a  dream,  the  promise 
that  he  shall  now  take  the  city,  determines  neverthe- 
less to  test  the  spirit  of  the  army,  by  formally  pro- 
posing to  them  that  they  shall  go  home.  They  take 
him  at  his  word,  and  rush  to  the  ships.  They  are 
only  brought  back  by  the  decision,  presence  of  mind, 
and  vigorous  action  of  Odusseus,  who  rallies  the  dis- 
persed assembly,  and  warms  them  with  the  recital  of  a 
good  omen.  Nestor  hereon  advises  a  formal  array  of 
the  army,  with  a  view  to  improved  discipline,  now 
more  needful  in  the  absence  of  Achilles.  Thus,  after 
a  solemn  sacrifice,  is  introduced  the  Catalogue,  or 
Domesday  Book  of  Greece.  Priam  and  Hector,  hear- 
ing of  this  muster,  undertake  a  like  operation,  and  a 
less  detailed  "  state  "  is  exhibited  of  the  Trojan  host 
with  its  allies. 

5.  The  War  in  the  Absence  of  Achilles. — 
Nothing  is  ever  placed  in  competition  with  the 
colossal  figure  of  Achilles ;  but,  as  he  is  now  absent, 
Homer  obtains  space  for  the  exhibition  of  the  other 


J50  HOMER.  LCHAP. 

principal  Achaian  chieftains  and  their  feats.  The 
whole  of  the  Books,  from  the  Third  to  the  Fifteenth 
inckisive,  are  so  contrived  that  a  real  superiority,  both 
of  honour  and  of  force,  is  assigned  all  along  to  the 
national  side;  while,  to  fulhl  the  aim  of  the  poem,  the 
Trojans  gain  the  upper  hand  by  means  of  various 
expedients,  such  as  divine  intervention,  the  use  of  the 
bow,  which  entails  no  danger  to  the  person  employing 
it,  and  the  interference  of  the  heralds  to  save  Hector, 
upon  his  combat  with  Aias,  from  utter  defeat.  The 
operations  commence  with  a  single  battle  between 
Menelaos  and  Paris,  who  owes  his  safety  to  being 
carried  ofif  by  Aphrodite.  On  the  issue  of  this  combat 
the  entire  war  was  to  depend  ;  but  Pandaros,  under 
the  crafty  suggestion  of  Athene,  breaks  the  compact 
by  treacherously  wounding  Menelaos  with  an  arrow. 
Meanwhile  Helen  had  come  forth  to  see  the  single  com- 
bat,  moved  without  doubt  by  her  interest  m  Menelaos, 
and  anticipation  of  his  victory :  and  she  is  made  to 
apprise  Priam  of  the  names  of  several  leading 
Achaian  chieftains,  who  are  within  view  from  the 
walls. 

6.  The  Achaian  Fortunes  at  the  lowest 
Ebb. — Homor,  by  the  means  I  have  named,  reduces 
the  Greeks  to  such  a  point  that,  in  the  Ninth  Book, 
Odusseus  and  Aias  are  sent  on  an  embassy  of  re- 
paration to  Achilles.  He  remains  however  sternly 
inexorable,  and  the  fortune  of  the  war  continues 
adverse,  though  spendid  feats  of  arms  have  been  and 
are  performed,  especially  by  Agamemnon,  by  Aias,  and 
by  Diomed,  who  has  wounded  two  of  the  Trojan  deities. 
Ares  and  Aphrodite.  A  fosse  and  rampart,  which  the 
Greeks  have  constructed,  is  assailed ;  Sarpedon  drags 
down  the  battlement,  Hector  breaks  open  the  gates ; 
Zeus  restrains  the  action  of  the  Hellenising  divinities  ; 
at  length  Hector  lays  hold  of  the  vessel  which  brought 
Portesilaos,  and  calls  for  fire  to  burn  it.  Aias,  after 
long   resistance,   is   finally  exhausted.     The   Trojans 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  21 

set  fire  to  the  ship  :  this  supreme  honour  being  care- 
fully withheld  from  tlie  Trojan  leader. 

7.  Patroclos  fights,  and  dies  by  Contrivance. 
— The  moment  has  now  arrived  which  Achilles  had 
fixed  in  his  mind  as  the  last,  up  to  which  he  could 
maintain  his  rigid  abstention.  He  sends  the  Myrmi- 
dons, under  his  bosom  friend  Patroclos,  into  battle. 
The  tide  is  at  once  turned.  Sarpedon,  perhaps  the 
first  warrior  on  the  side  of  Troy,  is  slain  by  Patroclos. 
The  victor  is  then  slain  himself,  nominally  by  Hector, 
but  only  after  being  disabled,  and  in  great  measure 
disarmed  by  Apollo,  and  wounded  by  Euphorbos. 
It  is  a  cardinal  rule  with  Homer,  that  no  considerable 
Greek  chieftain  is  ever  slain  in  fair  fight  by  a  Trojan. 
The  most  noteworthy  Greek,  who  falls  in  battle,  is 
Tlepolemos  ;  and  Sarpedon,  who  kills  him,  is  leader 
of  the  Lycians,  a  race  with  whom  Homer  betrays  a 
peculiar  sympathy.  The  threadbare  victory  of  Hector 
is  further  reduced  by  the  success  of  the  Greeks  in 
recovering  the  body  of  Patroclos.  In  the  meantime 
Achilles  is  apprised  of  the  catastrophe  through 
Antilochos,  elder  son  of  Nestor,  and  a  favourite  of 
the  great  chief. 

8.  The  Manifestation  of  Achilles. — The  sun 
of  the  Trojan  fortunes  has  now  set.  In  the  last  eight 
Books  of  the  twenty-four,  the  figure  of  Achilles  towers 
aloft,  and  overshadows  every  other.  His  grief  is  as 
portentous,  as  his  wrath.  Tlirough  his  mother  Thetis, 
the  celestial  artificer  Hephaistos  is  put  in  motion  to 
furnish  him  with  arms,  in  lieu  of  those  which  Patroclos 
had  borne,  and  Hector  had  appropriated.  The  scale, 
so  to  speak,  of  the  poem,  is  now  raised,  in  order  to 
glorify  its  great  hero ;  all  the  dimensions  are  every- 
where colossal.  The  battle  of  the  gods  is  announced. 
When  it  takes  effect,  the  Hellenising  deities  have  a 
marked  superiority  ;  but  the  poet,  who  always  honours 
Apollo  and  his  mother  Leto,  has  contrivances  for 
keeping  them  out  of  the  fray.     The  Trojans  fall  in 


22  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

whole  sheaves  before  Achilles  ;  no  Trojan  chieftain 
makes  the  smallest  head  against  him.  He  slays  Astcro- 
paios,  son  of  the  River-god  Axios,  valiantly  fighting, 
but  in  vain.  Kis  only  real  opponent  is  the  River-god 
Scamandros,  who  endeavours  to  carry  him  away  by 
virtue  of  the  strength  of  his  deity  in  flood.  Even 
this,  however,  is  not  conclusive,  until  he  has  called  in 
the  succour  of  his  brother  Simois.  Hera  then  obtains 
the  aid  of  Hephaistos,  who,  as  a  superior  god,  checks 
the  flood  with  fire.  Achilles  is  thus  set  free,  and  the 
city  is  only  saved  from  immediate  capture,  to  follow  on 
his  entering  with  the  fugitives,  through  the  stratagem 
of  Apollo,  who,  m  the  likeness  of  the  Trojan  prince 
Agenor,  entices  him  away. 

9.  Contrivances  for  the  Battle  with  Hector, 
We  now  approach  the  main  issue;  and  there  is  nothing 
more  artful  in  the  poem,  than  the  way  in  which  Hector, 
who  was  of  proved  inferiority  to  other  Achaian  chiefs, 
is  brought  beamingly  into  action  with  Achilles  ;  in  part 
by  his  over-weemng  self-confidence,  which  prevents 
him  from  taking  refuge  within  the  walls  ;  in  part  by  his 
fear  that,  if  now  he  adopt  the  waiting  game,  he  will  be  re- 
proached by  the  prudent  Ponludamas,  who  had  advised 
It  long  before ;  and  finally,  after  he  has  taken  to  flight 
and  thrice  made  the  circuit  of  the  walls,  by  the  strata- 
gem of  Athene,  who,  under  the  figure  of  his  brother 
Deiphobos,  exhorts  and  persuades  him  to  stand,  that 
they  may  jointly  contend  with  the  terrible  warrior. 
So  it  is  that  the  fight  begins.  But,  after  the  first  stage 
of  it.  Hector  finds  that  the  personated  Deiphobos 
has  disappeared.  Now  his  case  is  desperate ;  and 
from  despair  he  becomes,  perhaps  it  may  be  said  for 
the  first  time,  a  hero.  Zeus  and  Apollo,  he  finds,  no 
more  protect  him.  Destiny  presses  hard  upon  him. 
"  Let  ine  not  then  die  inert  and  inglorious,  but  do  a 
noble  deed,  which  shall  resound  through  all  posterity" 
(xxii.  304). 

He  falls,   of  course,    in    the    unequal   fight.     The 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  23 

Achaian  soldiery,  gathering  round  his  body,  admire  its 
beauty,  but  deface  it  with  gashes.  The  fierceness, 
which  is  so  powerful  a  constituent  of  the  character  of 
Achilles,  is  now  drawn  off  from  Agamemnon,  and 
concentrated  on  the  remains  of  Hector,  as  the  slayer 
of  his  friend.  These  he  ties  from  the  ancles  to  his 
chariot,  and  drags  along  the  plain  to  his  quarters, 
while  passionate  laments  are  raised  within  the  city  for 
the  champion  they  have  lost, 

10.  Reconciliation  with  the  Living,  and 
Honour  to  the  Dead. — To  conclude  the  great 
drama  of  the  Wrath,  it  now  remains  to  give  emphasis 
to  the  reconciliation  with  Agamemnon  ;  to  obtain  the 
release  of  the  dead  Hector  from  dishonour  ;  and  to 
signalise  by  noble  obsequies  the  demise  of  the  man 
who,  by  his  character  and  his  arms,  had  been  the  main 
prop  of  Troy.  The  first  is  effected  by  the  solemn 
Games,  in  which  Achilles  exhibits  in  its  perfection  the 
character  of  the  liberal  and  courteous  gentleman. 
For  the  second  and  more  difficult  purpose,  the  agency 
of  his  mother  Thetis  is  employed  to  suppress  the  yet 
smouldering  fires  within  his  bosom,  and  both  Iris  and 
Hermes  are  at  the  same  time  despatched  from  the 
Divine  Assembly  to  set  Priam  in  motion,  and  conduct 
him  to  the  camp  as  the  suppliant  of  Achilles.  In 
the  interview  which  follows,  although  the  great  chief 
is  still  tempted  towards  wrath  with  even  the  aged 
father  of  the  man  who  slew  his  friend,  yet  pity  and 
sorrow  obtain  the  mastery.  They  weep  profusely 
together.  The  body  of  Hector  is  delivered  and  re- 
ceived with  all  pious  care,  a  truce  of  eleven  days 
is  granted  for  the  obsequies,  and  on  them  the  curtain 
falls. 

11.  The  Artful  Balance  of  the  Poem.— The 
nicest  art  is  exhibited  throughout  the  poem,  m  a  jealous 
reservation  to  the  chiefs  on  the  Achaian  side  of  a 
marked  military  superiority,  while  their  opponents  are 
maintained  just  at  such  a  modified  pitch  of  dignity 

3 


24  HOMER.  [chap. 

and  valour,   as  to  leave  entire  and  unimpaired  the 
glory,  or  credit,  of  worsting  them. 

12.  Sustained  Parallelism  of  the  Divine 
Action. — But,  together  with  this  terrestrial  action, 
an  Olympian  or  celestial  plot  moves  on  parallel  lines, 
from  the  exordium  to  the  end.  The  sensible,  though 
not  unlimited,  difference  of  nationality  between  Trojan 
and  Achaian  is  accurately  reflected  in  Olumpos.  The 
Trojan  section  of  the  Divine  Court  consists  in  part  of 
deities  apparently  not  yet  recognised  in  Greece  :  Ares, 
Aphrodite,  and  lastly  the  Sun,  to  whom  no  active  share 
is  allowed.  Then  there  is  Scamandros,  a  purely  ele- 
mental deity,  and  also  purely  local.  Their  inferiority 
to  the  Hellenising  deities  is  made  up  by  the  action  of 
Zeus  through  Apollo,  until  the  termination  of  the 
Wrath.  From  first  to  last  the  game  is  played  above  with 
the  keen  interest  of  living  men,  and  it  is  made  visible 
to  our  eyes  at  the  interstices  of  the  terrestrial  action. 

13.  Moral  Adjustment  of  the  Poem.— While 
such  is  the  theurgy  of  the  poem,  the  main  lines  of  its 
morality  are  strong  and  clear.  Agamemnon,  for  his 
greed  and  tyranny,  is  wounded  in  his  most  sensitive 
part,  namely,  the  feeling  of  a  thoroughly  politic 
general  and  monarch  for  his  people,  and  for  his  power. 
Achilles,  who  is  on  the  side  of  right  in  this  quarrel,  is 
nevertheless  punished,  by  a  protracted  agony  of  grief 
over  his  lost  friend,  for  the  excess  which  he  allows 
to  deform  his  sense  of  wrong.  But  neither  of  these 
aims  are  so  pursued  as  to  neutralise  that  general 
movement  in  the  fortunes  of  the  war,  which  is  de- 
manded by  the  moral  order  of  the  world.  The 
cause  for  which  the  Trojans  fight  is  a  bad  cause,  and 
receives  the  defeat  which  it  deserves. 

14.  National  Aim  and  Feeling. — Hector,  though 
regarded  for  his  personal  qualities,  fights  in  an  evil 
quarrel,  and  dies.  Next  to  the  ethical,  the^national 
aim  is  with  the  poei  Jiloe  most  essential;  and~TKe 
abs"ence~"of~-th€-^otagonist  from  the  field  gives  him 


11.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION,  25 

an  opportunity  of  glorify in^the_. exploits  of  the  other 
chieftains,  each  of  whom  could  not  fail  to  be  an  object 
of  peculiar  interest  in  his  own  proper  part  of  Greece. 
Moreover,  these  high  exploits  of  the  associated  chiefs, 
which  required  space  and  detail  for  their  full  exhibi- 
tion, not  only  did  honour  to  the  nation  generally 
when  measured  against  the  Trojan  performances,  but 
formed  a  scaffolding,  as  it  were,  on  which  to  build 
up  the  yet  greater  achievements  of  Achilles,  and  give 
more  marked  elevation  and  prominence  to  their 
really  preterhuman  scale. 

15.  The  Plot  an  Argument  not  against  the 
Unity,  but  for  it. — If  these  views  be  correct,  the 
plot  of  the  Iliad  is  one  of  the  most  consummate  works 
known  to  literature.  I'he  objections  which  have  been 
founded  on  it  to  disprove  the  unity  of  the  work  are, 
it  may  be  said,  objections  of  very  small  stature.  And 
not  only  is  it  not  true  that  want  of  cohesion  and  pro- 
portion in  the  Iliad  betrays  a  plurality  of  authors,  but 
it  is  rather  true  that  a  structure  so  highly  and  deli- 
cately organised  constitutes  in  itself  a  powerful  argu- 
ment, to  prove  its  unity  of  conception  and  execution. 

16.  Alleged  Minor  Discrepancies. — With  re- 
gard to  discrepancies  in  the  text,  every  effort  to  show 
them  in  mass  may  be  declared  to  have  failed.  The 
markings  of  time,  by  division  into  day  and  night,  are 
clear  and  consistent.  The  theory  of  some  travellers, 
which  placed  Troy  at  a  distance  of  six  or  eight  miles 
from  the  sea,  supplied  a  weapon  against  the  poem, 
which  represents  backward  and  forward  movements  of 
the  armies  between  the  walls  and  the  ships  as  repeated 
on  the  same  day.  But  that  theory  has  been  found 
untenable.  Moreover,  the  recent  discoveries  of  Schlie- 
mann  have  made  it  appear  probable,  that  Troy  was 
seated  on  the  hill  of  Hissarlik,  at  a  distance  from  the 
shore,  even  as  it  now  is,  of  less  than  three  miles, 
which  was  probably  shorter  at  the  epoch  of  the  poem. 
Almost  the  only  real  discrepancy  of  the  text  is  in  the 


26  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

case  of  Pulaimenes,  leader  of  the  Paphlagones,  who  is 
slain  by  Menelaos  in  the  fifth  Book,  but  weeps  among 
the  mourners  at  the  death  of  his  son  Harpalion  in 
the  thirteenth. 

17.  The  Destructive  Theories. — A  more  serious 
question  is  raised  with  reference  to  the  general  struc- 
ture of  the  poem.  Achilles  is  the  protagonist,  or  hero 
ot  the  poem,  as  Odusseus  is  of  the  Odyssey.  In 
the  Odyssey^  every  book  either  produces  or  stands 
directly  related  to  the  hero,  whereas  Achilles  disap- 
pears from  the  seven  Books  between  the  first  and 
ninth,  and  from  the  six  between  the  ninth  and  the 
sixteenth.  This  is,  without  doubt,  a  very  peculiar 
arrangement.  It  has  tempted  Grote  to  propound  the 
division  of  the  poem  into  an  Achilleis,  which  should 
contain  the  Books  where  the  great  chief  is  active,  and 
an  Ilias,  composed  of  the  Books  when  he  is  in  eclipse. 
But  the  very  eminent  historian  has  in  this  speculation 
enlisted  no  disciples.  And  it  may  be  observed  gene- 
rally, as  a  material,  though  not  a  decisive  fact,  that 
while  the  destructive  criticism  bestowed  upon  Homer 
has  had,  especially  in  Germany,  very  extensive  support, 
no  particular  scheme,  set  up  to  replace  that  of  the 
unity  of  the  poems,  has  met  with  any  degree  of  favour. 

18.  Plot  of  the  Odyssey. — The  beauties  of  the 
Odyssey  in  characters  and  in  detail  cannot  be  exag- 
gerated :  but  there  was  nothing  like  the  same  amount  of 
mental  effort  required  for  the  construction  of  the  plot. 
It  begins  with  an  Olympian  Council,  which  determines 
that  Odusseus  shall  be  brought  home  from  the  Island 
of  Kalupso,  where  he  has  been  detained  for  many 
years.  At  the  same  Athene  designs  that  while  the 
Suitors,  who  woo  Penelope,  are  engaged  in  riotous 
hving  at  the  palace,  Teleraachos,  now  come  to  man- 
hood, shall  pass  over  from  Ithaca  to  the  mainland, 
and  make  inquiries  about  his  father.  In  executing 
this  plan,  he  obtains  much  intelligence  respecting  the 
return  home  of  the  chieftains,   and    the    lengthened 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  27 

tour  of  Menelaos  on  the  south-east  coast  of  the 
Mediterranean.  In  the  fifth  Book,  we  have  the 
release  of  Odusseus  from  Kalupso,  and  his  return 
homewards  as  far  as  Scherie,  the  land  of  shipmen ;  a 
place  described  by  Homer  apparently  upon  the  basis 
of  accounts,  which  had  reference  to  the  topography  of 
Corfu.  Here  he  is  hospitably  entertained,  and  a  vessel 
is  prepared  to  carry  him  to  Ithaca.  Before  setting 
out  he  describes,  in  Books  ix. — xii.,  his  own  extended 
wanderings  to  the  coast  of  Africa,  then  into  the  far 
west  and  north,  then  to  the  east  and  the  Under-world, 
and  again,  after  he  has  made  way  on  his  journey 
homewards,  his  being  again  driven  out  into  the  centre 
of  the  great  sea,  northwards,  where  he  became  the 
guest,  the  darling,  and  the  prisoner  of  Kalupso. 
After  bemg  deposited  in  Ithaca,  he  betakes  himself 
first  to  the  cottage  of  the  trusty  swineherd  Eumaios. 
Here  Telemachos  meets  him  ;  and  from  hence,  dis- 
figured and  thus  disguised  by  Athene,  he  ventures  down 
to  the  city,  and  makes  full  proof  of  the  insolent 
mind  and  purpose  of  the  Suitors.  The  trial  of  the 
bow  is  proposed  to  them  by  Penelope  ;  and  the  person 
who  draws  it  is  to  have  the  reward  of  her  hand. 
They  all  fail.  Odusseus  himself  performs  the  feat : 
and  then  comes  the  terrible  slaughter  of  the  guilty  and 
reckless  men.  It  is  followed  by  the  disclosure  of 
himself  to  Penelope,  and  his  re-establishment  in 
power,  after  a  scene  of  recognition  with  his  father 
Laertes,  and  a  civil  war  in  miniature  against  the  party 
who  adhere  to  the  Suitors.  There  is  a  curious  realism 
in  the  difficulties  which  beset  the  re-establishment  of 
Odusseus  in  his  dominions.  It  seems  to  bear  witness 
to  a  truly  historical  character  m  the  narrative. 

19.  Theurgy  of  the  Poem. — The  divine 
action,  parallel  with  the  human,  is  maintained  from 
first  to  last.  It  may  however  be  described  as  a  mani- 
festation of  close  providential  superintendence,  without 
the  marked  interpositions  of  the  Iliad.     There  is  no 


28  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

division  of  parties  in  Olumpos.  Only  Poseidon  per- 
secutes the  hero  from  a  personal  grudge;  and  the 
Sun,  Helios,  becomes  hostile  from  a  like  cause  at  a 
particular  point.  On  the  other  hand,  the  interests 
of  the  hero,  and  those  of  his  house,  are  sustained 
by  the  ever-wakeful  prudence  and  energy  of  Athene. 

20.  The  Two  Plots  Compared. — The  two 
plots  may  be  briefly  compared.  In  the  plot  of  the 
Odyssey,  symmetry  is  obvious  at  first  sight.  In  the 
plot  of  the  Iliad,  it  has  to  be  sought  out ;  and  the 
relevancy  and  proportion  of  the  parts  are  only  seen 
in  full  when  we  bring  into  view,  together  with  the 
highly  national  character  of  the  poem,  the  circum- 
stances of  the  minstrel,  itinerant  among  the  courts, 
festivals,  and  games  of  Greece,  and  naturally  led  to 
give  alternate  prominence  to  the  performances  of  the 
respective  chiefs,  with  whose  names  this  or  that  part 
of  the  country  had  a  special  connection.  The  plot 
of  the  Iliad  is  in  reality  a  far  more  subtle,  far  less 
imitable  work.  Each  poem  hangs  upon  a  man  :  the 
Iliad  upon  the  wrath  of  a  man.  Each  poem  is  intensely 
national  \  but  the  nationality  of  the  Iliad  is  exhibited 
in  the  struggle  with  an  alien  and  offending  power ; 
that  of  the  Odyssey  in  the  comparison  and  contrast 
between  Achaian  life  on  the  one  side,  and  foreign  and 
partly  fabulous  scenes,  manners,  and  institutions  on 
the  other.  The  Odyssey  is  more  strange  in  adven- 
tures ;  but  its  ordinary  tone  within  the  Hellenic  zone 
is  calmer  and  more  subdued,  and  tends  less,  except 
when  near  the  crisis,  to  w^arm  the  blood  of  the  reader. 
There  is  in  each  a  parallelism  between  the  divine  and 
the  human  actions.  It  is  but  rarely,  in  the  Iliad,  that 
grandeur  and  rapid  force  give  way,  to  allow  the  exhibi- 
tion of  domestic  affection  :  yet  this  exhibition  is  as 
remarkable  and  unequivocal  as  the  more  splendid 
features  of  the  poem.  Conversely  in  the  Odyssey^  the 
family  life  supplies  the  tissue  upon  and  into  which  is 
woven  the  action  of  the  poem  :    yet   upon  occasion 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  29 

it  rises  into  a  grandeur  that  is  extraordinary.  Tiie 
scene  of  Hector  and  Andromache  equals  the  Odyssey 
in  tenderness ;  the  slow  preparations,  moral  as  well 
as  physical,  for  the  great  Vengeance  on  the  Suitors, 
in  their  stern  sublimity,  perhaps  may  match  with  any- 
thing in  the  Iliad :  so  that  each  poem,  from  base  to 
summit,  has  a  somewhat  similar  largeness  of  range. 
The  Iliad  is  carefully  finished  to  the  end ;  and,  if 
it  flags  at  all,  flags  in  some  of  the  middle  parts, 
while  the  great  issue  remains  suspended  :  the  last 
took  of  the  Odyssey^  while  it  carries  a  sufficiency  of 
identifying  marks,  exhibits  a  manifest  decline  in 
lorce,  as  if  the  mind  and  hand  of  the  master  were 
conscious  that  their  work  was  done,  and  coveted 
their  rest. 

Section  II. — Against  the  Separators. 

1.  Objections  of  the  Separators. — Many,  who 
firmly  hold  the  separate  unity  of  each  poem,  decline 
to  refer  them  to  the  same  author.  The  controversy 
with  these  Chorizontes,  or  Separators,  forms  the  gravest 
branch  of  the  Homeric  Question. 

This  school  of  disputants  first  appeared  among  the 
Alexandrian  critics  about  two  centuries  B.C.  The 
arguments,  variously  handled  at  different  times,  are 
mainly  as  follows  : — 

(i.)  There  has  been  alleged  a  difference  of  gram- 
matical forms  indicative  of  a  later  date  of  composition 
for  the  Odyssey. 

(2.)  Differences  in  the  narrative. 

(3.)  Differences  in  the  religious  department. 

(4.)  Differences  in  the  manners,  the  political  and 
social  picture. 

2.  Reply  to   Objection   (i). — As   to  the  gram 
matical  forms,  the  reply  has  been,  a,  that  the  variance 
IS  insignificant ;  /5,  that  it  tends  to  exhibit  the  use  of 
older  and  less  expanded  forms  in  the   Odyssey  rather 


30  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

than  the  reverse ;  c,  that  the  use  of  such  forms  cannot 
show  the  Odyssey  to  be  later;  d,  that  neither  do  they 
show  it  to  be  earlier,  for  the  amplitude  of  the  less 
archaic  forms  harmonises  with,  and  may  be  accounted 
for  by,  the  greater  majesty  of  style  required  for  the 
more  majestic  subject  of  the  Iliad. 

3.  Reply  to  Objection  (2). — As  to  the  narrative, 
without  doubt  the  Odyssey  makes  additions  to  the 
Iliad,  but  they  relate  to  a  period  after  the  action  of 
the  Iliad  closes.  It  is  however  urged  that,  in  the 
Odyssey,  there  appears  on  the  stage  Neoptolemos,  a 
full-grown  son  of  Achilles,  about  whom  the  Iliad,  in 
the  ninth  year  of  the  war,  is  silent.  It  may  be  added 
that  Achilles  speaks  of  Briseis  as  having  been  at  least 
in  contemplation  his  wife :  and  that,  even  at  this  date, 
he  belongs  to  the  younger  rather  than  the  elder  group 
of  the  Greek  chieftams.  But  in  Montenegro,  men  of  or 
under  thirty-five  often  have  a  son  able  to  bear  arms. 
On  various  grounds,  we  may  assert  that  he  had  no  wife 
living  at  his  home.  But  we  cannot  therefore  assert 
that  he  had  never  had  one.  There  is  however  a 
wider  question  :  namely  whether,  in  assigning  whole 
decades  of  years  to  the  drama  of  the  war,  Homer 
proceeds  as  a  chronicler,  or  conventionally  for  the 
purposes  of  his  art.  Even  were  there  a  merely  chro- 
nological discrepancy,  we  might  urge  that  it  perhaps 
belongs  to  a  field  in  which  poetical  colouring  is  allowed, 
and  that  in  any  case  it  affords  too  narrow  a  ground  for 
an  argument  on  authorship. 

4.  Reply  to  Objection  (3). — As  to  differences  in 
the  religious  department,  the  objection  taken  is  two- 
fold. First,  it  is  held  by  some  that  the  divine  order 
exhibits  in  the  Odyssey  a  higher  morality.  But  in 
truth  both  poems  work  out  strictly  the  divine  counsel 
and  the  ends  of  justice  ;  both  connect  morality  with 
piety ;  both  exhibit  elements  of  corruption  in  the 
celestial  hierarchy  ;  in  both  there  are  gods,  who  show 
signs  of  lust  and  of  vindictive  passion.     If  their  mirth 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  31 

is  marred  by  their  fighting  in  Iliad  xxi.,  they  have 
to  wink  in  the  Odyssey  at  the  persistent  opposition  of 
Poseidon  to  the  divine  counsels  in  favour  of  the  return 
of  Odusseus. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  higher  ethics  any- 
where in  the  Iliad  undergo  such  serious  disparagement 
as  in  the  intrigue  of  Ares  and  Aphrodite  i^Od.  viii.); 
in  the  declaration  of  Athene  to  Odusseus  in  the 
thirteenth  Book  that  she  was  in  heaven,  as  he  on 
earth,  the  person  most  deeply  versed  m  guileful  arts ; 
and  in  the  exhibition  of  Hermes  {Od.  xx.)  as  the 
official  teacher  of  thieving  and  of  perjury. 

The  second  point  of  the  objection  is,  that  the 
composition  and  attributes  of  the  divine  hierarchy  in 
the  two  poems  do  not  agree.  Iris  is  employed  as  the 
divine  messenger  in  the  Iliad,  commonly,  though  not 
exclusively  ;  Hermes  in  the  Odyssey.  The  Sun  is  a 
sleeping  partner  in  the  Iliad^  whose  personality  is  only 
detected  by  a  phrase  or  two ;  in  the  Odyssey,  he  is 
active  and  jealous,  both  as  a  ruler  upon  earth,  and  as 
a  member  of  the  Olympian  court.  Hephaistos  is  the 
husband  of  Aphrodite  in  the  Odyssey,  but  of  a  some- 
what ideal  Chans  m  the  Iliad.  It  might  be  added  that 
the  Hera  of  the  Iliad  shares  freely  in  the  divine  govern- 
ment of  affairs,  but  she  has  no  practical  part  in  the 
Odyssey ;  and  that  Poseidon,  whose  proceedings  are 
subject  to  the  direct  control  of  Zeus  in  the  Iliad,  has 
a  much  more  unchecked  action  in  the  Odyssey.  Some 
minor  differences  will  be  noted  elsewhere  ;  but  these 
are  important.  They  would  justly  lead  us  to  surmise 
duality  of  authorship,  if  the  poet  were  in  the  two 
works  dealing  with  the  same  scenes  and  races.  But, 
m  a  large  part  of  the  Odyssey,  he  passes  beyond 
the  limits  of  the  well  known  or  Achaian  world.  He 
was  perfectly  aware  that  there  were  national  varieties 
of  religion  ;  and  it  is  to  these  that  the  foregoing  differ- 
ences seem  to  be  really  referable.  If  this  be  so,  the 
mythological  diversities  seem  to  represent  not  diversity 
3* 


32  HOMER.  [chap. 

of  authorship,  but  sagacity  and  circumspection  in  the 
representation  of  manners  as  to  both  poems  respec- 
tively ;  and  so  far  as  these  qualities  are  rare  ones,  they 
go  to  make  it  likely  that  two  works,  in  each  of  which 
they  are  remarkable,  proceeded  from  the  same  brain. 

5.  Reply  to  Objection  (4). — As  to  differences  in 
the  political  and  social  sphere,  it  is  true  that  various 
details  of  life  appear  in  the  Oayssey,  which  are 
wanting  in  the  Iliad.  So  do  many  details  of  military 
life  currently  appear  in  the  Iliad  and  not  in  the 
Odyssty.  It  could  not  be  otherwise.  Camp  life  is 
one  thing,  civil  life  is  another.  No  argument  can  be 
founded  upon  diversities,  which  belong  to  the  nature 
of  the  scenes  pourtrayed. 

There  is  however  a  political  variance,  which  does 
not  at  once  fall  within  this  explanation.  The  title  of 
Basileus,  or  King,  is  used  in  the  Iliad  with  the  utmost 
restraint,  and  only  for  some  eight  or  ten  Greek  per- 
sons. But  in  the  Odyssey  every  Suitor  is  a  basileus.  To 
account  for  this,  we  must  advert  to  the  revolutionary 
effect,  which  the  Troic  expedition  could  not  but  tend 
to  produce  in  Greece,  like  the  Crusades  at  a  later  date 
in  Europe.  Upon  the  prolonged  absence  of  the  chief 
lord,  nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  that  the 
petty  lords,  having  for  the  time  no  superior,  should 
affect  the  sovereign  title.  But  the  broad  principles  of 
polity  set  forth  in  the  Odyssey  appear  to  be  identical 
with  those  of  the  Iliad. 

6.  Arguments  for  Unity.  Improbability 
that  there  should  be  Two  Poets  of  such 
rank. — But  those,  who  defend  the  unity  of  the  double 
work,  do  not  rest  satisfied  with  mere  replies  to 
objections. 

The  positive  grounds  for  ascribing  the  Odyssey 
to  the  author  of  the  Iliad  may  be  partially  stated  as 
follows. 

Either  of  these  poems  places  its  author  at  an  ele- 
vation among   the  poets  of  the   entire  civilisation   of 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  33 

the  world,  which  is  very  peculiar.  The  judgment  of 
the  Greeks,  without  doubt  very  strong  in  constructive 
appreciation,  gradually  but  firmly  drew  a  broad  line 
between  these  and  the  many  competing  productions, 
handed  down  from  the  prehistoric  age,  and  assigned 
to  their  author  a  position  of  solitary  grandeur.  He 
long  held  it  alone  :  some  would  say  he  holds  it  still  : 
some  would  place  Dante  by  his  side,  yet  more  would 
so  place  Shakespeare;  few  in  comparison  would 
admit  any  other  claim.  That  one  such  poet  as  our 
Homer  should  have  arisen  in  an  age  stinted  in  the 
materials  of  thought,  possessed  ot  little  hereditary 
training,  an  age  without  aids  and  appliances,  and  of 
manners  including  a  large  barbarous  element,  is  mar- 
vellous. To  suppose  the  existence  of  two  men,  each 
of  them  a  supreme  poet,  appears  to  be  a  very  daring 
paradox.  As  the  aloe  is  said  to  flower  once  in  a 
hundred  years,  so  it  seems  to  be  but  once  in  one  or 
two  thousand  that  nature  flowers  into  this  unrivalled 
product.  Either  the  Iliad  or  the  Odyssey  suffices  to 
stamp  the  character.  It  is  not  agreeable  to  analogy 
to  suppose  a  personality  of  so  transcendent  a  kind  to 
have  been  so  soon  repeated,  and  on  so  limited  a 
stage, 

7.  Correspondence  of  the  Poems  in  Great 
Outlines. — Some  minds  will  derive  a  more  solid 
satisfaction  from  the  positive  evidence  of  correspond- 
ence in  all  the  great  outlines  of  the  two  poems.  In 
cases  where  the  conceptions  of  a  poet  are  faint  and 
shallow,  such  correspondence  might  mean  little  more 
than  the  mere  absence  of  discrepancy.  But  in  Homer 
every  character,  every  idea,  is  sharply  cut,  and  full  of 
vitality.  The  correspondence  of  wooden  blocks  is 
not  remarkable,  the  correspondence  of  human  forms 
and  faces  often  is.  Now  there  is  not  a  department  of 
life  or  thought,  in  which  close  correspondence  be- 
tween the  two  poems  is  not  the  general  rule  :  and  the 
objections   of  opponents   have  been   endeavours  to 


34  HOMER,  [CHAI'. 

show  particular  exceptions.  If  we  take  first  the 
mythology :  the  divine  personages  are  alike  intensely 
charged  with  human  elements ;  they  generally  act, 
govern,  love,  and  hate  on  the  same  principles  :  the 
Olumpian  polity,  a  marvellous  formation,  is  similarly 
conceived  and  worked.  If  we  turn  to  the  human 
characters,  the  evidence  is  yet  more  many-sided.  We 
see  that  the  hand,  which  drew  Andromache,  was  the 
hand  to  draw  Penelope.  We  find,  not  always  a  cir- 
cumstantial identity  where  the  same  personage  appears 
in  the  two  poems,  but  a  new  shade  of  colour,  or 
modification  of  attitude,  in  just  proportion  to  the 
change  of  position.  The  distressed  Helen  of  the 
Iliad  becomes  the  favoured  Helen  of  the  Odyssey, 
vested  in  a  queenly  calm,  but  still  with  recollections 
which  serve  to  chasten  pride.  The  impassioned 
Achilles  of  the  Iliad  reappears  in  all  his  grandeur,  but 
beneath  a  veil  of  solemn  sadness,  as  befits  the  Under- 
world. But  in  a  character  like  that  of  Menelaos,  where 
the  change  of  circumstances  is  more  material  than 
moral,  the  delineation  remains  without  any  sensible 
alteration.  Take  again  the  extreme  difficulty  of 
drawing  effectively  a  character  like  that  of  Odusseus. 
In  one  sense,  much  that  is  new  in  him  comes  out  in 
the  Odyssey:  but  what  so  comes  out  is  simply  the 
complement  of  the  less-developed  picture  of  the  Iliad. 
For  instance,  his  concise  speech  ((9^.  viii.),  in  reply 
to  the  insult  of  a  prince  of  the  Phaiakes,  is,  to  say  the 
least,  one  of  the  most  crushing  replies  on  record  : 
immensely  removed  from  the  studied,  artful  calm  of 
his  address  on  the  mission  meant  to  appease  Achilles. 
But  it  is  in  full  harmony  with  the  account  given 
by  Antenor  (//.  iii.)  of  his  oratory,  which  drove  as  the 
snow-flakes  drive  in  winter.  The  passionate  element 
of  his  nature,  thus  glanced  at  in  the  Iliad^  is  amply 
developed  in  the  Odyssey.  So  the  polity,  the  pro- 
fessions, the  stage  of  advancement,  both  for  the  fine 
and  the  useful  arts,  the  high  refinement  of  manners, 


n.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  35 

combined  with  occasional  signs  of  recent  or  sur- 
rounding savagery,  might  all  be  drawn  out  as  fresh 
proofs  of  an  identity  of  origin.  But  we  must  not 
fail  to  observe  one  other  concord.  It  is  found  in  the 
steady  bent  of  mind,  which,  without  any  kind  of 
moroseness,  uniformly  enlists  the  sympathy  of  those 
who  hear  or  read  on  the  side  of  good,  and  leads  them, 
as  by  the  hand,  to  the  condemnation  and  even  con- 
tempt of  evil.  In  every  single  case  where  he  portrays 
a  character  radically  vicious.  Homer  contrives  that 
it  shall  be  regarded  not  only  with  disapproval,  but  with 
aversion.  There  are  few  among  Christian  poets,  who 
can  match  him  in  this  vital  particular :  and  the  har- 
mony of  the  two  poems,  in  a  point  so  characteristic, 
again  points  in  a  marked  manner  to  their  springing 
form  a  single  mind. 

8.  Minute  and  Undesigned  Ccincidences.— 
The  foregoing  are  all  great  matters.  But  there  is  another 
chapter  of  evidence,  on  the  whole  not  less  important, 
yet  much  more  difficult  to  follow,  because  made  up 
of  particulars  minute  in  themselves,  and  strong  only 
in  their  combination  ;  like  the  threads  of  cotton  or  of 
wool,  before  and  after  they  are  combined  into  a  cloth. 
Unfortunately,  the  force  of  such  an  argument  as  this 
must  be  taken  upon  trust,  until  the  student  of  Homer 
has  accustomed  himself  to  watch  for  those  nicer 
turns  of  thought  and  expression,  which  the  more 
careless  reader  passes  over  without  notice.  It  is  not 
possible  to  give  any  just  idea  of  this  matter  by  enume- 
ration. Sometimes,  however,  the  correspondences 
are  those  of  poetic  usage,  as  in  the  very  delicate 
and  careful  appropriation  of  epithets;  or  in  the  intro- 
duction of  similes,  not  simply  because  they  happen  to 
occur  to  the  poet,  but  when  they  are  needed,  and  are  of 
value  to  enliven  the  otherwise  slightly  flagging  move- 
ment of  the  action.  Sometimes  they  are  to  be  de- 
lected in  the  mere  force  and  propriety  of  a  word.  Each 
poena,  for  example,  hangs  essentially  upon  a  man. 
4 


36  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

So  the  subject  is  presented  in  the  first  word  of  the 
Odyssey^  andra.  But  the  Iliad  hangs  not  so  much  on 
the  entire  destiny,  as  upon  the  wrath,  of  a  man  ;  and 
again  the  first  word  of  the  Iliad  is  the  cardinal  word, 
rnenin.  Once  in  the  Iliad \yQ  are  told  how  Odusseus  was 
shorter  than  Menelaos.  Once  in  the  Odyssey  Polu- 
phemos  contemptuously  describes  him  as  a  little  fellow. 
Once  in  the  Iliad  allusion  is  made  to  the  hanging-up 
of  votive  offerings  (//.  i.  39)  ;  once  also  in  the  Odyssey 
(iii.  274) ;  cannibalism  is  mentioned  with  horror  in  the 
Iliad  (iv.  35) ;  the  practice  is  assigned  to  monsters 
in  the  Odyssey  {Od.  ix.  289,  x.  130,  134).  Domestic 
affection  is  the  basis  of  the  conception  of  Odusseus 
in  the  Odyssey;  in  the  Iliad  he  is  the  only  one 
among  the  Greek  chieftains  who  ever  refers  to  his 
child  at  home  (//.  ii.  259;  iv.  353).  In  X\\q  Iliad ^ 
Hera,  protectress  of  the  Achaians,  brings  to  its  close 
the  great  day  which  had  been  preternaturally  lengthened 
for  the  benefit  of  the  Trojans.  In  the  Odyssey 
Athen^,  protectress  of  Odusseus,  detains  the  Night, 
and  stops  Eos  from  rising,  to  give  more  time  for  the 
converse  of  the  returned  hero  with  Penelope.  In 
each  poem  are  found  two  lines,  and  only  two,  con- 
sisting exclusively  of  spondees.  I  do  not  know  that 
any  other  Greek  poet  has  ventured  upon  this  peculiar 
and  daring  metrical  arrangement.  But  it  is  more 
notable  that  in  all  the  four  cases  alike  there  is  a  close 
adaptation  between  the  sound  of  the  verse  and  the 
sense  (//.  ii.  544,  xxiii.  221,  Od.  xv.  2>2,Z^  xxi.  15).  These 
are  not  select,  but  rather  random  instances  of  the 
minuter  harmonies  ;  and  their  purpose  is  to  suggest  to 
the  student  a  mode  by  which  he  may  trace,  in  the 
form  of  undesigned  coincidence,  independent  evidence 
of  that  close  unity  of  thought  and  feeling,  which  has 
animated  the  composition  of  these  great  sister  works. 
9.  Want  of  such  Correspondence  in  all  other 
Compositions. — The  argument  from  agreement  in 
the  works,   and   consistency   in   the   characters   and 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTIOiV.  37 

essential  styles  of  the  two  poems  acquires  additional 
force,  when  we  remember  that  none  of  these  are 
found  to  be  maintained,  so  soon  as  we  pass  beyond 
these  two  compositions  to  the  works  of  other  authors, 
whether  of  the  classical  period  or  before  it.  The 
other  epics  of  the  Iliac  Cycle  differ  in  their  narrative 
from  the  Iliad.  Thus  the  absence  of  such  difference 
in  the  Odyssey  becomes  a  topic  of  great  weight.  The 
great  characters  of  Homer,  especially  such  as  Achilles, 
Odusseus,  Helen,  are  in  every  case,  when  they  pass 
into  the  hands  of  the  later  writers,  altered  and  de- 
based. From  this  we  learn  to  estimate  the  power  of 
the  argument  for  unity  of  composition  drawn  from  the 
perfect  consistency  of  these  characters  in  the  two 
poems.  The  objector  may  safely  be  challenged  to 
supply  an  answer  to  the  question,  How  it  could  possibly 
happen  that  there  should  be  such  a  closeness  of 
similitude  between  the  two  poets  in  particular  whom 
he  creates  for  the  two  poems,  and  such  a  total  want 
of  it  between  them  and  all  others  (so  far  as  we  know) 
who  practised  the  same  art? 

10.  The  Distinction  of  Style  and  Handling. 
— So  far  as  tone  and  style  are  concerned,  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  pulse,  so  to  speak,  of  the  Odyssey  beats 
less  vehemently  than  that  of  the  Iliad.  It  would, 
however,  be  strange  if  this  were  not  so,  when  we 
recollect  that  one  is  a  poem  of  war,  and  the  other  of 
peace:  one  of  the  barrack,  the  other  of  the  palace.  It 
is  reasonably  believed,  among  those  who  oppose  the 
Chorizontes  or  Separators,  that  the  just  proportion  which 
exists  between  the  subject  and  the  style  of  each, 
suggests  another  proportion,  not  less  just,  between 
subject  and  style  on  the  one  hand,  and  time  of  life 
on  the  other :  that  the  Iliad  represents  the  life  and 
genius  of  the  poet  moving  upwards  to  the  zenith, 
and  the  Odyssey  the  same  life  and  genius  in  the 
paler  tract  beyond. 


38  HOMER.  [CHAP. 


Section  III.  Wolf  and  the  TranSiMission  by 
Memory. 

1.  Belief  before  Wolf. — Until  the  eighteenth 
century  of  our  era  was  near  its  close,  it  may  be  said 
that  all  generations  had  believed  Troy  was  actually 
Troy,  and  Homer  in  the  main  Homer  ;  neither  taking 
the  one  for  a  fable,  or  (quaintest  of  all  dreams)  for  a 
symbol  of  solar  phenomena,  nor  resolving  the  other 
into  a  multiform  assemblage  of  successive  bards,  whose 
versSs  were  at  length  pieced  together  by  a  clever 
literary  tailor.  The  earliest  age  which  can  be  called 
critical,  and  which  had  ceased  to  be  creative,  was  that 
of  the  Ptolemies  ;  and  it  did  launch  a  serious  opinion 
that  there  were  two  Homers,  an  author  of  the  Iliad, 
and  an  author  of  the  Odyssey.  With  this  theory,  one 
entitled  to  all  respect,  1  have  already  dealt.  Into  the 
destructive  speculations  generally,  the  nature  and 
limits  of  this  work  do  not  allow  me  to  enter.  I  have 
thought  it  enough  to  meet  them  by  a  rapid  exhibition 
of  the  structure  of  the  poems ;  which  must  stand  or 
fall  mainly  by  internal  evidence.  But  one  among  these 
theories  demands  a  particular  notice,  for  the  interest 
attaching  to  the  question  which  it  raises,  and  because, 
acquiring  from  circumstances  a  powerful  impetus,  it 
has  carried  all  the  others  along  with  it  in  its  train. 

2.  \A/olf's  Attack,  and  the  Defence. — After 
slighter  premonitory  movements,  it  was  Wolf  that 
made,  by  the  publication  of  his  Prolegomena  in  1795, 
the  serious  attack.  It  had  been  too  carelessly  as- 
sumed, even  for  example  by  Bentley,  who  disallowed 
the  original  unity  of  the  poems,  that  Homer  wrote 
what  he  composed.  Wolf  maintained  that  available 
writing  was  not  known  at,  or  till  long  after,  the  period 
of  their  composition;  and  that  works  of  such  length, 
not  intrusted  to  the  custody  of  written  characters, 
could  not  have  been  transmitted  throu'j;h  a  course  of 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  39 

generations  with  any  approach  to  fidelity.  Therefore 
they  could  only  be  a  number  of  separate  songs,  brought 
together  at  a  later  date.  The  reply  to  Wolf  rested  on 
a  denial  of  his  proposition,  that  the  resource  of  writing 
was  not  at  the  service  of  the  composer  of  the  poems. 
It  was  still  boldly  contended  that  they  had  been 
written ;  and  that,  being  written,  they  were  therefore 
capable  of  transmission. 

3.  Mischief  of  the  First  Defence. — It  is  now 
I  believe  the  prevailing,  and  I  am  confident  the 
correct,  opinion  that  the  poems  were  not  originally 
written  compositions,  but  were  dependent  on  human 
memory  for  their  being  handed  down.  The  first 
generation  of  their  defenders  had  seemed  to  admit 
that  transmission  by  memory  was  impossible ;  later 
champions  allowed,  that  transmission  by  manuscript 
had  not  been  the  first  actual  vehicle.  If  they  were 
not  thus  placed  in  literal  conflict  with  one  another, 
at  any  rate  the  practical  effect  was  that  the  adversary 
accepted  each  of  the  two  separate  admissions,  and 
that  a  great  impulse  was  given  to  the  negative 
speculation. 

4.  The  Poems  certainly  Unwritten. — There 
appears  to  have  been  not  even  a  colourable  ground 
for  the  contention,  that  the  poems  were  at  the  outset 
written  compositions.  The  prevalence  of  such  an 
opinion  indeed  shows  how  slight  had  been  the  current 
methods  of  study.  Only  one,  or  at  the  outside  two, 
passages  make  reference  in  any  way  to  cut  or  inscribed 
characters.  Of  these,  the  only  passage  which  is  clear 
in  making  such  a  reference  (//.  vi.  168-73)  speaks  of 
folded  and  seemingly  fastened  tablets  ;  from  which 
we  might  conclude,  apart  from  any  other  difficulty, 
that  there  was  no  portable  material,  which  could  be 
used  for  compositions  of  great  length.  The  lack  of 
positive  evidence  is  not,  however,  the  principal  argu- 
ment. Many  lays  are  mentioned  in  the  poems  ;  but 
always  as  lays  orally  delivered.     Many  messages  are 


40  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

sent  and  received,   including  matter   of   the    utmost 
delicacy,  such  as  the  offers  to  the  offended  Achilles, 
where  accuracy  was  of  the  greatest  consequence ;  but 
as  a  rule  all  is  done  by  word  of  mouth.     Such  messages 
are  set  out  in  full  on  sending  and  on  delivery,  a  prac- 
tice which  gives  a  practical  and  convenient  rest  to  the 
mind  of  a  reciting  poet,  but  which  is  without  sense 
in  the  case  of  a  written  composition.     The  same  ob- 
servation applies   to  the  recurring  lines,  or  for7nuuej 
with  which  Homer  abounds.     The  rapid  and  incessant 
movement  of  the  Iliad,  and   the  large  portion  of  the 
poem  which  is  thrown  into   speeches,  appear  to  call 
for,  and  suppose,  the  aids  of  voice  and  gesture.     More 
than  2,200  lines,   reaching   nearly  the  length  of  two 
plays,    are    recited    by    Odusseus    without    a   break. 
Above  all,  the  Greek  Catalogue  is  treated  as  a  supreme 
effort  of   the  poet,  and  this  Catalogue  is  alone  pre- 
ceded by  a  formal  and  detailed   supplication  to  the 
Muses  for  aid.     Now  there  is  no  portion   of  equal 
length  in  the  poem,  upon  which  less  of  poetic  force  is 
expended ;  but  it  contains  a  long  list  of  varied  numbers, 
and  of  many  hundred  epithets  and  names.   As  a  work 
of  composition,  no  part  of  the  poem  could  be  easier ; 
as  a  work  of  memory,  none  more   difficult,  than  to 
observe  the  right  order,  and,  by  avoiding  all  omission, 
to  satisfy  the  jealous  fondness  of  the  hearers  all  over 
Cireece.      In  my    view    it    is    indisputable    that   the 
poems  were  not  written.     But,  according  to   a  well- 
known  rule,  great  stress,  laid  upon  a  bad  argument, 
brings  arguments  which  are  good  into  discredit ;  and, 
upon  the  breaking  down  of  the  untrue  doctrine  that 
the  poems  had  been  written,  the  enemy  rushed  in  like 
a  flood.     Thus,  of  all  the  circumstances  of  the  original 
attack,  the  defence  proved  to  be  the  worst. 

5.  Were  they  Transmitted  by  Memory  ? — 
Either,  then,  they  were  transmitted  by  memory,  or 
not  at  all.  The  question  is,  Could  compositions  of 
such  length  be  so  transmitted  ? 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  41 

There  seems  to  be  no  room  for  doubt,  that  the 
power  of  recollection  would  be  found  adequate  to  the 
office.  In  those  early  days,  men  took  only  to  em- 
ployments which  they  were  fit  for ;  and  the  select 
memories  of  sympathising  men,  professionally 
trained,  and  carrying  on  the  work  for  the  very 
practical  purpose  of  a  livelihood,  would  in  all  likeli- 
hood be  able  to  compass  the  complete  retention  of 
either  poem,  perhaps  even  of  both.  Division  of  labour 
may  have  lightened  the  merely  physical  task.  Long 
recitations,  we  see,  were  in  use.  When  Odusseus 
himself  recites  at  a  breath  (fid.  ix. — xii.)  2,241  lines, 
it  is  nov/here  signified  that  this  was  in  any  way  an 
effort  for  the  speaker,  or  for  the  listeners.  It  is  likely 
that  modern  recollection  has  been  weakened  by 
habitual  reliance  upon  the  great  labour-saving  con- 
trivances of  manuscript  and  print.  Yet  Macaulay, 
when  occupied  with  the  engrossing  pursuit  of  an 
historian,  a  province  wholly  foreign,  happened  to  find- 
on  a  casual  opportunity,  that  he  could  repeat  one-half 
of  Paradise  Lost:  and  among  the  men  of  his  genera- 
tion there  were  a  few,  though  a  very  few,  whose 
capacity  of  recollection  rivalled,  or  approached  even 
that  of  Macaulay.  Indeed,  the  aggregate  contents  of 
various  memories  at  the  present  day  must  exceed  the 
w^hole  mass  of  the  poems. 

6.  Conservating  Effect  of  the  Public 
Recitations. — This  power  of  memory,  however 
would  not  of  itself  guarantee  us  against  the  creeping  in 
of  small  errors  in  detail;  which,  it  may  be  argued, 
might  run  together,  and  grow  to  serious  greatness. 
This  is  so  :  and  compounded  error  is  very  difficult  to 
d-jal  with.  There  was  a  principle  of  variance  and 
decay  continually  at  work  for  the  disintegration  of  the 
poems.  Nay,  there  were  many  such  forces;  one, 
namely,  in  the  mind  of  each  reciter.  But  this  cir- 
cumstance, which  at  first  sight  exaggerates  the 
mischief,  provided  in  some  degree  the  remedy.     That 


42  HOMER,  [CHAP. 

probably  happened  then  among  the  Rhapsodists, 
which  has  happened  since  among  critics  anxious  to 
recast  their  Homers :  each  would  be  sufficiently- 
enamoured  of  his  own  deviations  from  the  text,  but 
by  no  means  as  well  inclined  to  those  of  others.  The 
errors  introduced  by  the  Rhapsodists,  at  each  and 
every  place  of  recitation,  might  be  numerous,  but 
they  could  not  be  the  same.  By  jealous  love  they 
would  be  brought  into  comparison,  which  would  be 
conflict ;  and  they  would  greatly,  like  plus  and  minus 
quantities,  eject  one  another.  Moreover,  the  rivalry 
of  rising  bards,  would  naturally  take  the  form  of  an 
ambition  to  be  preferred  on  the  very  ground  of 
fidelity  to  an  original,  which  had  long  proved  in  a 
conclusive  manner  its  own  superiority  to  rivalry. 
This  proof  had  been  applied  by  the  testing  hand  of 
time ;  applied  as  impartially  to  great  authors  and 
small,  as  death  knocks  at  the  door  of  the  palace  and 
the  cottage.  As  a  destroying  angel,  he  visited  every- 
where, but  he  let  pass  unharmed  the  paramount 
excellence  of  the  Jliad  and  the  Odyssey.  Gradually 
they  were  severed  from  their  companionship  with  all 
the  lengthened  pieces  on  the  same  group  of  events, 
called  the  Trojan  Cycle,  and  these  were  suffered  all  to 
drop  away  ;  although  shorter  and  later  compositions, 
carrying  the  name  of  Homer  by  a  vague  ascription, 
have  come  down  to  us. 

7.  State  Guardianship  of  the  Poems. — The 
nature  of  the  case  excludes  the  contemporary  testi- 
mony of  literature  to  the  poems  in  the  first  stages  of 
their  existence.  But  when  the  literary  age  had  begun, 
we  find  notices  of  them  in  considerable  numbers,  and 
very  noteworthy  in  their  purport.  I  select  for  notice 
the  interestmg  statement  of  Heracleides  Pontikos,  a 
pupil  of  Plato,  that  Lukourgos,  the  Spartan  legislator, 
having  received  the  poems  from  the  descendants  of 
Kreophulos,  a  reputed  companion  of  Homer,  brought 
them  into  Greece.     Thus  the  account,  which  of  all 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION.  43 

others  goes  the  farthest  back,  exhibits  the  poems  to 
us  as  already  receiving  the  regular  cognisance  of 
public  authority.  Other  testimonies  speak  of  them 
as  similarly  recognised  in  the  time  of  Turtaios,  and 
in  the  time  of  Solon.  In  later  times,  there  were  regu- 
lar State-editions ;  and  there  may  even  be  reason  to 
suppose  that  there  was,  in  the  Greek  peninsula  at 
least,  some  approach  to  a  standard  text. 

8.  The  Survival  of  the  Fittest.— Thus  there 
were  in  operation  three  conservative  influences,  which 
might  counteract  effectually  the  tendencies  to  large 
dismtegration,  and  in  no  small  degree  even  maintain  the 
general  purity  of  the  text.  These  were,  first,  publicity 
and  free  competition  in  the  recitations  ;  secondly,  the 
care  of  the  State  for  a  standing  national  treasure ;  thirdly 
and  most  of  all,  the  internal  force,  the  hold  upon  the 
hearts  and  minds  of  men,  by  which  the  poems  had 
vindicated  their  own  existence  before  regular  polity 
existed,  and  were  handed  down  as  a  singular  exaniple 
of  triumph  over  external  difficulties,  and  of  what  is 
termed  "  the  survival  of  the  fittest."  The  force  of 
this  observation  is  enhanced  when  we  remember,  that 
neither  poem  is  historically,  though  each  is  ideally, 
complete.  The  Odyssey  does  not  bring  us  to  the 
demise  of  Odusseus  ;  and  the  Iliad  neither  begins  nor 
ends  the  Siege  of  Troy. 

9.  Fluctuations  of  Taste. — However  valuable 
the  means,  then,  that  were  employed  for  the  conser- 
vation of  the  works,  it  does  not  follow  that  the 
estimation  of  them  was  altogether  exempt  from  the 
action  of  change  in  taste,  probably  brought  about  by 
change  in  manners.  The  Athenian  drama  of  the 
classical  age  is  by  no  means  in  strict  conformity  with 
the  Homeric  models,  when  it  touches  upon  Troic 
events  and  characters ;  possibly  because  the  poems  did 
not  give  to  Athens  what  she  then  thought  her  just  place 
among  the  Greeks.  More  general  causes  may  also  have 
acted,  as  in  the  cases  of  the  other  greatest  poets  of  the 


44  HOMER.  rcHAP. 

world,  Shakespeare  and  Dante,  whose  popularity  has 
not  been  by  any  means  uniform.  Among  those  who 
stand  immediately  after  them,  it  does  not  appear  that 
either  Virgil  or  Milton  at  once  took  his  proper  place 
in  public  estimation.  With  Homer,  the  case  was 
rather  the  reverse.  The  careful  guardianship  of  his 
poems,  when  all  besides  was  lost,  bears  witness  to  his 
commanding  position  among  the  minstrels  of  the 
heroic  age.  With  the  lapse  of  time  and  change  of 
manners,  though  he  probably  lost  nothing  in  vene- 
ration, he  did  not  continue  in  the  same  degree  to  be 
the  companion  of  daily  life.  He  sang,  as  it  were, 
in  another  key.  Moreover,  the  sustained  chivalry 
of  the  Iliad  was  necessarily  above  the  average  mood 
of  men;  and  the  high  standard  of  domestic  virtue, 
exhibited  in  the  Odyssey^  was  no  longer  to  be  found 
in  the  debauched  common  life  of  the  classical 
period.  Probably  we  are  near  the  mark  in  say- 
ing, respect  and  veneration  were  uniform  :  popularity 
was  exposed  to  fluctuation. 

10.  On  the  Trustworthiness  of  the  Text  in 
Detail. — The  preservation  of  the  poems  in  any  form 
from  a  remote  antiquity  is  certainly  a  marvel.  There 
is  nothing  parallel  to  it  in  the  history  of  literature. 
That  the  general  integrity  of  the  text  should  have 
been  also  preserved,  is  a  supposition  not  to  be  accepted 
without  a  close  scrutiny.  Some  of  the  circumstances 
have  been  set  forth,  which  tend  to  support  it.  But 
the  decision  of  the  question  must  ultimately  depend 
on  the  judgment,  which  the  republic  of  scholars  may 
finally  form  upon  the  internal  evidence  supplied  by 
the  condition  of  the  text  itself.  Unhappily,  the  full 
contents  of  the  poems  have  never  yet  been  methodi- 
cally submitted  to  the  v/orld,  so  as  to  allow  of  a  com- 
prehensive consideration  of  their  wide  range,  their 
variety,  and  their  very  extensive  coherence  in  detail. 
Even  German  sedulity  has  until  the  present  time 
shrunk  from  this  task,  and  the  world  has  been  con- 


II.]  THE  HOMERIC  QUESTION,  45 

tented  hitherto  with  slight  and  imperfect  efforts.  Dr. 
Buchholz,  of  Erfurt,  has  at  length  confronted  the 
enterprise,  and  has  already  published  two  volumes  of 
Honerische  Realien.  One  Englishman  at  least  has  a 
similar  undertaking  in  hand. 

II.  Anticipation  of  a  Final  Judgment.— The 
business  of  diving  and  mining  into  the  text,  and  of 
systematic  gathering  and  comparison  of  its  contents, 
is  in  truth  a  new  business.     Not  until  they  shall  have 
been  thoroughly  exposed,    and  that  for  a  length  of 
time,   can  a  general  and  solid  judgment  be  formed 
among  scholars  as  to  the  conclusions  which  ought  to 
be  drawn  from  the  process.     Having  laboured  much 
and  long  in  this  province,  I  am  hopeful  that  a  com- 
plete cognisance  of  what  Homer  contains  will  go  far 
to  put  an  end  to  the  disputes  whether  there  was  any 
Homer,  or  whether  there  were  two  Homers,  and  even 
whether  the  integrity  of  the  text  is  or  is  not  what  is 
termed  a  sound  working  hypothesis,  on  which  we  may 
proceed  with  reasonable  security,  though  with  occa- 
sional risk.     This  however  is  for  the  present  mere 
anticipation.    But  it  is  worthy  of  note  that,  even  while 
Hom.eric  scepticism  still  widely  prevails,  in  theory  at 
least,  upon  the  Continent,  yet,  when  it  is  a  question 
of  mythology,   or  of    polity,   or  of  domestic  life,    or 
of  manners,  or  of  the  state  of  knowledge,  or  of  arts, 
or  of  industrial  production,  the  non-believers  act  as 
if  they  believed,  and  repair  to  the  two  poems  as  a 
magazine    in   which,    and    in    which    alone,   all    the 
materials  appropriate  to  their  inquiries  are  set  forth 
in  consistent  array.     For  practical  ends,  Homer  is  but 
one ;  and  his  works,  by  common  consent,  are  handled 
as  an  organic  whole.     Happily,  the  primary  character- 
istics   of    the    poet   are    distinct   from    the  minutely 
granulated  evidence  to  be  obtained  from  the  details 
of  the  text.     These  are  open  to  the  observation  and 
judgment  of  the  many  persons  who,  without  being 
professional  or  persistent  students,  are  cultivated,  and 


46  HOMER.  [ciiAi>. 

attentive  readers.  Such  are  the  structure  of  the 
plots,  the  delineation  of  characters,  their  sustained 
consistency,  the  unity  and  individuality  of  style. 
And  these,  even  alone,  may,  I  hope,  be  generally 
sufficient  to  obtain  a  tolerably  assured  verdict  on 
the  main  issues. 


CHAPTER  III. 

HISTORY. 

1.  Homeric    Genealogies:    their    Use.— Of 

chronology,  the  ordinary  framework  of  history,  in 
which  the  succession  of  its  events  is  adjusted,  Homer 
knows  nothing.  He  has,  however,  a  nide  substitute  for 
its  exact  measurements,  in  reckonings  of  the  generations 
of  men.  Thus  he  describes  the  age  of  Nestor,  in  the 
Iliad^  by  saying  he  had  passed  through  two  genera- 
tions of  men,  and  was  ruling  amidst  the  third.  His 
genealogies  therefore,  being,  as  they  are,  both  numer- 
ous and  remarkably  accordant,  supply  us  with  a  kind 
of  historical  scale,  and  by  means  of  it  a  rough  outline 
of  what  was,  for  him,  the  fore-time  may  be  drawn. 

2.  Their  Nature  and  Length. ^ — The  longest 
of  these  genealogies  run  up  to  a  god  as  the  first  an- 
cestor. They  give  the  descents  of  princes  ;  and  they 
appear  to  indicate  the  first  beginnings  of  political 
society,  capable  of  action  outwards,  and  distinct  from 
mere  village-communities.  This  original  paternity 
of  the  gods  corresponds,  like  so  much  else  in  Homer, 
with  the  usages  of  Egypt,  which  reckoned  its  earliest 
dynasties  as  dynasties  of  gods,  and  still  held  kings  to 
be  quasi-divine.  One  Homeric  genealogy  exceeds  all 
the  rest  in  its  length.  It  is  that  of  Dardanos.  Hector, 
who  represents  the  manhood  of  his  epoch,  is  the 
seventh  of  his  line,  which  sprang  immediately  from 
Zeus.  It  is  noteworthy  that  this  race,  the  oldest 
known  to  Homer,  is  also  the  most  easterly,  and  there- 


III.]  HISTORY.  47 

fore  the  nearest  to  the  seat,  from  whence  proceeded 
the  first  migrations  westward.  It  appears  to  indicate 
a  period  of  about  two  hundred  years  before  the  War, 
marking  the  date  at  which  a  certain  race  had  arrived 
as  upon  the  north-eastern  coast  of  the  A\gtdiX\  Sea.  In 
(ireece,  the  earliest  line  we  hear  of  is  that  of  Aiolos. 
Sarpedon  and  Glaukos  are  in  the  sixth  generation  of 
that  line.  It  is  god-born ;  and  the  sire  is  evidently 
Poseidon.  Amphimachos,  an  Elian  commander,  is 
the  fifth  in  the  line  of  Azeus,  who  is  the  highest 
human  ancestor  named.  Poseidon  is  expressly  named 
as  the  father  of  the  line.  Antilochos  and  his  brothers 
are  of  the  fifth  generation  in  the  line  of  Salmoneus, 
whose  origin  is  probably  from  Poseidon.  Arete,  Queen 
of  Scherie,  is  also  of  the  fifth,  in  the  line  of  Kurumedon. 
There  is  little  doubt  that  Poseidon  is  to  be  regarded 
as  here  supplying  the  divine  paternity,  but  he  also 
intervenes  in  the  line  itself,  and  is  the  queen's  great- 
grandfather. This  is  not  to  be  regarded,  however,  as 
a  Greek  genealogy. 

3.  Their  Ethnological  Value. — These  con- 
nections witti  a  god  as  ancestor  are  not  simply  mytho- 
logical, but  ethnical,  and  are  among  the  best  threads 
of  guidance  upwards  to  the  cradle  of  Hellenic  history  ; 
and  this  in  various  ways.  For  example,  in  the  Dar- 
danian  line,  we  learn  expressly  that  the  epoch  of  god- 
parentage  is  also  that  of  the  first  civic  settlement.  It  is 
almost  certainly  the  same  in  Greece,  where  traditional 
record  seems  to  begin  with  it :  as  with  Pelops  in  the  line 
of  Agamemnon,  and  with  Aiakos  in  the  line  of  Achilles. 
'I'hese  lines  are  about  two  generations  shorter  than  the 
group  before  cited.  Before  these  lines,  there  is  nothing 
Achaian  or  Hellenic  :  they  may  be  taken  as  denoting 
the  fountain-head  of  the  race,  placed  less  than  a 
century  before  tl^e  \\'ar  <^{  Troy. 

4.  The  immediately  pre-Achaian  Period. — 
But  it  is  evident  that  there  was  a  pre-Achaian  history 
of  the  peninsula,  and  Homer  has  carefully  marked  the 

4*  5 


48  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

distinction  by  the  use  of  race-names.  The  Hellenic 
name  had  not  passed  its  first  infancy  at  the  epoch  of 
the  poems.  The  Achaian  name,  which  was  not  only 
current,  but  dominant,  is  never  used  for  facts  more 
than  two  generations  old.  The  father  of  Eurustheus 
reigned  not  over  Achaians,  but  Argeians.  This  name 
we  find  in  the  poems,  where  it  does  not  mean  the 
local  inhabitants  of  Argolis,  to  signify  principally  the 
commonalty. 

5.  Emergence  of  the  Achaian  Name,  and 
its  Disappearance. — The  Achaians  came  from  the 
north.  7'hey  imprinted  indeed  their  name  on  the 
Morea,  but  Homer  shows  them  to  us  as  an  Hellenic 
race  in  Thessaly,  and  close  to  the  head-quarters  of 
original  Hellenism  at  the  ancient  sanctuary  of  Do- 
dona  ;  the  Murmidones,  he  says,  were  Hellenes,  and 
were  also  Achaians.  They  came  as  a  race,  and  every- 
where took  the  lead,  but  they  blended  with  the  mass 
of  the  population.  After  the  Dorian  conquest,  this 
appellation  entirely  lost  its  national  character,  and,  as 
a  purely  local  phrase,  indicated  only  the  inhabitants 
of  the  south  coast  of  the  Corinthian  gulf.  Homer  tells 
us  in  terms  that  the  Murmidon  Achaians  were  Hellenes. 
This  wider  Hellenic  name,  not  having  been  specially 
associated  with  the  Achaian  predominance,  survived 
the  great  military  and  social  revolution.  It  became 
classical ;  and,  though  superseded  for  a  length  of  time 
through  the  overpowering  influence  of  Roman  sway, 
it  is  now  again  the  national  and  European  name  of 
the  inhabitants  of  Hellas. 

6.  Connection  of  the  pre-Achaian  Period 
with  Egypt. — In  the  pre-Achaian  period  of  about 
two  generations,  the  tract  afterwards  named  Bceotia  was 
inhabited  by  a  race  of  immigrants,  called  by  Homer 
Kadmeians,  who  founded  Thebes.  This  name,  as 
well  as  other  signs,  connect  them  with  the  Theban  or 
second  Empire  of  Egypt ;  which,  besides  appropriating 
much  of  western   Asia,  made  use  of  the  Phoenician 


III.]  HISTORY.  49 

navigators  as  its  maritime  arm,  and  established  a 
sovereignty,  as  sovereignty  was  then  understood,  in 
Greece  and  the  islands.  This  we  learn  from  other 
sources.  But  it  is  in  accordance  with  all  the  indica- 
tions of  the  Homeric  text.  Indeed,  those  indications 
are  hard  to  explain,  except  by  accepting  the  testimony 
of  the  Egyptian  m.onuments.  Besides  the  Kadmeian 
link  of  connection,  we  find  from  the  genealogies, 
various  families  living  in  the  Greek  peninsula,  who  had 
appeared  there  at  a  particular  time  ;  who  had  too,  as  in 
the  case  of  King  Proitos,  connections  abroad,  and  who 
exercised  sway  without  belonging  either  to  the  stock 
of  previous  inhabitants,  or  to  any  large  body  of 
colonists.  The  name  of  Aiolos,  which  heads  more 
genealogies  than  one,  is  placed  in  manifestly  foreign 
and  southern  association  by  the  use  of  it  in  the 
Odyssey  for  the  ruler  of  the  distant  island  Aiolie. 
The  Danaan  name  is  expressly  connected  with  the 
Phoenician  coast  and  the  paternity  of  Zeus.  The 
name  Aiolos,  and  others  which  have  been  referred 
to,  attach  themselves  to  Poseidon.  Him  we  are  on 
every  ground  to  regard  as  an  imported  deity,  not  indi- 
genous like  Zeus.  He  comes  over  sea  from  the  south- 
ern region.^  These  lines,  it  is  to  be  noted,  appear  as 
the  Imes  of  single  families.  They  are  in  no  sense 
tribal.  They  are  just  what  they  would  have  been  if 
they  had  sprung  from  the  delegated  governors  who 
in  these  parts,  remote  from  the  centre  of  power, 
represented  the  Egyptian  Empire.  We  know  from 
other  sources,  that  it  very  soon  lost  the  power  it  had 
thus  established ;  and  we  see  from  HomiCr  that,  at  the 
time  of  the  War,  all  administrative  connection  with  it 
had  ceased. 

7.    Period     before    that     Connection. — But 

among  whom  came  these  officers,  if  such  they  were, 

and,  whatever  they  may  have  been,  over  whom  did 

they  rule?     Doubtless  over  a  people  of  sufficiently 

^  See  infia,  p.  97. 


50  HOMER,  [CHAP. 

settled  life  to  be  worth  ruling  over.  While  tradition 
gives  us  the  widespread  name  of  the  Pelasgoi,  cover- 
ing probably  many  other  local  names,  as  that 
of  the  earliest  settled  inhabitants  of  the  peninsula, 
Homer  calls  Thessaly,  which  had  not  like  the  Morea 
been  overshadowed  by  a  great  Achaian  dynasty, 
Pelasgic  Argos  \  and,  on  the  three  occasions  on  which 
he  mentions  the  race,  he  always  gives  to  them  a  special 
epithet  of  honour.  Considering  the  singular  signi- 
ficance of  his  system  of  epithets,  and  their  total  want 
of  marked  qualities  at  the  period  of  the  War,  it  is 
difficult  to  account  for  this  on  any  ground,  except  it 
be  that  they  had  a  title  to  veneration  as  the  ancient 
possessors  of  the  soil,  and  the  first  founders  of  social 
life  in  the  peninsula. 

8.  Marked  by  Nature-Worship. — But  apart 
from  the  mere  use  of  the  name,  we  hear  a  stronger 
proof  of  the  existence  of  a  pre-Hellenic,  though  by 
no  means  alien  population,  from  the  presence  of  a 
peculiar  element  in  the  mythology :  a  strong  per- 
vading ingredient  of  Nature-worship,  greatly  out  of 
keeping  with  the  anthropomorphism,  or,  as  I  would 
rather  call  it,  theanthropism,  of  the  Olympian 
system,  and  manifestly  older.  We  have  abundant 
traces  in  Homer  of  the  displaced  dynasties  of  gods, 
whose  lineage  Hesiod  has  set  forth  for  us,  and  who 
can  only  have  had  for  their  worshippers  the  popula- 
tion termed  Pelasgian. 

9.  Pelasgian,  Phoenician,  and  Achaian 
Periods. — Let  us  sum  up  what  has  been  said.  We 
seem  then  to  be  introduced  to  the  Greek  peninsula  and 
islands  when  they  were  inhabited  by  communities,  but 
not  yet  in  States ;  and  were  at  that  stage  of  development 
which  has  hardy  and  peaceful  agriculture  for  its  only 
or  main  art  of  life.  Over  these  tracts,  far-aiming 
Eg}'ptian  power  casts  its  net,  and  in  establishing  its 
sway  it  makes  known  to  them,  through  her  agents, 
the  useful  arts  in  general,   of  which  Egypt  and  the 


III.]  HISTORY.  51 

East  were  already  in  possession.  As  the  route  be- 
tween them  is  maritime,  and  as  her  maritime  agents 
are  supplied  by  Phoenicia,  it  is  with  the  Phoenician 
name  that  these  arts  are,  in  the  mind  of  Greece,, 
associated.  When  Egypt  ceases  to  advance,  she 
recedes ;  and  it  is  naturally  where  the  tie  is  weakest 
and  least  direct  that  self-government  is  first  recovered  ; 
so  that  those,  who  had  been  the  agents  of  a  foreign 
power,  become  petty  princes  in  the  land.  Meanwhile  a 
vigorous  tribe,  of  the  same  ethnical  family  as  the  old 
inhabitants,  spreads  itself  from  the  north,  and  carrying 
with  it  the  Achaian  name,  grows  to  be  the  governing 
and  guiding  power  of  the  peninsula  and  its  islands. 
This  is  an  outline  suggested  by  probable  evidence ; 
but  it  does  not,  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowledge, 
lay  claim  to  certainty. 

10.  Formation  of  a  National  Life. — Now 
has  come  the  time  for  those  efforts  at  common  action, 
whereby  that  marvellous  product,  the  Greek  nation, 
was  to  be  formed.  They  seem  at  first  to  have  taken 
the  shape  of  a  reaction ;  and  among  them  those  which 
aim  at  the  rejection  of  foreign  sway  are  perhaps  the 
noblest.  The  district  around  Thebes  was  the  only 
district  held  by  a  community  of  foreigners  ;  and  it 
is  not  difficult  to  trace,  in  the  Homeric  legend  of 
the  war  against  Thebes,  the  marks  of  a  raid  upon 
the  stranger.  There  is  also  a  legend  in  the  Odyssey 
of  a  predatory  expedition  to  Egypt,  which  probably 
in  like  manner  indicates  a  movement  of  retaliation. 
The  slight  references  in  the  poems  to  the  voyage 
of  the  ship  Argo^  "  watched  by  all  with  interest," 
and  favoured  by  Hera,  the  deity  most  peculiarly 
national,  fully  agree  with  the  suggestion  that  this 
attack  on  the  outlying  Egyptian  settlement  of  Colchis 
(such  it  is  known  to  have  been)  was  a  blow  struck  in 
the  same  sense,  and  with  the  sagacious  choice,  in 
all  likelihood,  of  the  point  that  was  deemed  tlie 
weakest. 


$2  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

11.  The    Pelopid   and  Dardan    Families. — 

But  the  curtain  is  about  to  rise  upon  greater  events 
than  these.  The  Pelopid  family  now  rules  by  a 
primacy  or  suzerainty  in  Greece  "over  all  Argos  and 
the  groups  of  islands  "  (//.  ii.  102).  It  is  the  head  of 
Achaian  power ;  yet  it  is  not  without  foreign  associa- 
tions. The  sceptre  it  had  for  a  symbol  was  the  special 
gift  of  Zeus.  But  it  was  a  work  of  art  made  for  him 
by  Hephaistos,  the  metal-working  god,  and  all  high 
metallurgy  was  at  this  epoch  foreign.  The  "  where- 
abouts "  of  Pelops,  the  first  ancestor,  is  kept  obscure. 
This  suggests  his  being  a  foreigner,  for  Homer  never 
directly  assigns  to  a  foreign  origin  anything  that  has 
become  naturalised  in  Greece,  even  if  by  indirect 
means  the  secret  may  sometimes  be  penetrated. 
There  were  relations  too,  and  points  of  resemblance 
between  the  Pelopid  and  the  Dardan  kings.  The  elder 
branch  in  Greece  bore  the  ancient  and  peculiar  title  of 
anax  andron^  lord  of  men,  in  common  with  a  very  few  old 
houses,  apparently  of  an  extraction  remotely  foreign. 
The  branch  of  Anchises,  probably  also  senior,  and 
ruling  at  the  certainly  senior  seat  of  Dardania,  while 
Priam  held  the  younger,  though  wealthier  Ilion,  bore 
the  same  title.  Echepolos,  a  son  of  Anchises,  dwelt 
in  Greece;  Paris,  the  son  of  Priam,  visited  Menelaos, 
enjoyed  his  hospitality,  and  thus  had  the  opportunity 
of  carrying  off  to  Troy  his  wife,  the  beautiful  Helen. 

12.  Motives  of  the  Trojan  War. — Resent- 
ment for  a  base  and  cruel  wrong,  the  lust  of  booty 
from  a  city  famous  for  its  wealth,  and  ambition  to 
consolidate  by  a  great  national  effort  the  power  of  the 
dynasty,  alike  impelled  the  Pelopids  to  undertake  the 
War  of  Troy.  It  seems  not  easy  to  understand  how 
the  other  chiefs  of  Greece  could  be  organised  for  so 
great  an  undertaking,  in  which  they  had  so  slight  an 
interest.  No  wonder  that  the  business  of  combining 
them  should  have  been  a  great  business.  Greed  would 
have  its  influence  ;  but  there  was  more  in  it  than  greed. 


111.  J  HISTORY.  53 

There  was  the  political  instinct  of  union,  the  charm 
and  fascination  of  adventure,  the  irrepressible  force  of 
daring  in  an  energetic  people,  with  ardour  not  yet 
tamed  by  experience,  growing  to  be  dimly  but  truly 
conscious  of  its  destiny,  and  eager  to  reap  the  first- 
fruits  of  its  fame.  They  tried  first,  if  we  may  believe 
the  poet,  a  mission  to  demand  the  restoration  of 
Helen,  and  of  the  property  which  Paris  had  not 
forgotten  to  steal  along  with  her.  The  robber  and 
adulterer  did  not  scruple  to  bring  about  a  refusal  by 
bribery  in  Troy.  So  began  the  expedition.  It  may 
have  done  much  to  make  the  nation.  But  the  poet, 
who  sang  of  it,  did  yet  more. 

13.  The  Question  as  to  its  Historical 
Character. — I  do  not  here  enter  upon  the  truth  of 
the  Trojan  war  as  history,  though  I  see  no  reason  to 
doubt  it ;  and  it  appears  to  derive  very  powerful,  if 
indirect  support  from  recent  discoveries,  especially 
those  of  Dr.  Schliemann  at  Hissarlik  and  Mukenai. 
But  we  have  to  deal  with  it  in  the  main  as  poetry. 
Moreover,  the  historical  character  of  the  poems,  in 
the  inner  sense  of  the  term,  is  independent  of  what 
may  be  called  their  technical  or  formal  truth.  Even 
if  the  facts  were  freely  exaggerated,  or  otherwise 
altered  for  the  purpose  of  poetical  effect,  nay,  even  if 
invented  for  that  purpose,  the  poems  might  still  be 
historical  in  the  most  material  respects.  All  those 
glimpses  of  the  prior  and  general  history  of  the  race, 
which  they  permit  rather  than  promise,  might  still  be 
correct  to  the  letter.  The  portraiture  of  religion, 
manners,  institutions,  arts,  might  be  entirely  trust- 
worthy. The  psychology  of  the  poems  m  its  largest 
sense  might  be  absolutely  true  :  the  state  and  scale  of 
the  human  mind,  thought,  language,  and  character, 
might  be  the  same ;  just  as,  in  the  Carolingian  and 
Arthurian  romance,  we  never  regard  the  truth  of  the 
manners  as  dependent  upon  tlie  truth  of  the  facts ; 
and  indeed  in  these,  especially  in  the  last-named,  it  is 


54  HOMER.  [cfiAP. 

difficult  to  connect  the  two.  In  the  case  of  Homer, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  rather  difficult  to  sever 
them.  Even  the  Dorian  Revolution,  in  its  terrible  and 
destructive  sweep,  bears  an  indirect  witness  to  the 
fidelity  of  Homer.  The  political  and  social  disor- 
ganisation, for  which  the  Iliad  prepares  us  by  the 
prolonged  absence  of  the  princes  and  mightiest 
men,  and  which  the  Odyssey  depicts  in  the  dominions 
of  a  particular  chief,  are  the  very  causes  which,  most 
of  all  in  a  young  society,  would  effectually  pave  the 
way  for  a  barbarising,  reactionary  change  such  as  we 
recognise  in  that  Revolution. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

COSMOLOGY. 

1.  Earth  the  Centre  of  the  System.— This 

earth  was  for  the  poet,  as  it  continued  to  be  for  the 
civilised  world  through  many  more  than  two  thousand 
years  after  his  time,  the  solid  centre  of  the  Kosmos  or 
universe,  that  is  to  say  the  ordered  aggregate  of 
material  things ;  a  word  unknown  to  him,  like  the 
name  by  which  he  passes,  but  needful  to  enable  us  to 
deal  with  his  ideas  in  this  department  as  a  whole. 

2.  Habitable  Space.  A.  Olumpos.  —  His 
division  of  habitable  space  was  fourfold  : — First, 
the  summit  and  upper  regions  of  Mount  Olumpos 
were  poetically  conceived  as  of  an  indefinite  height, 
wholly  beyond  the  reach  of  human  eye  or  foot,  en- 
larged by  a  like  process  into  ample  dimensions,  and 
associated  with  the  higher  aerial  region  iaither),  as  the 
one  proper  for  celestial  movement.  Here  dwelt  the 
gods  in  palaces,  the  main  one  certainly  and  the  rest 
probably,  burnished  bright  with  copper,  and  construc- 
ted for  them  by  Hephaistos,  the  artificer  of  the  order, 
and  the  source  and  type  of  metallic  art  for  men. 


IV.]  COSMOLOGY.  55 

3.  B.  The  Earth-surface  and  solid. — The  earth- 
surface,  and  the  bosom  of  this  great  teeming  mother,  as 
far  as  it  was  accessible  to  human  toil,  were  given  for 
the  residence  and  use  of  the  living  tenants.  But  in 
the  farthest  tract  west,  or  north  of  west,  was  thought  to 
lie  a  happy  region  ever  fertile,  clear  in  atmosphere, 
unvexed  with  storms,  to  which  at  death  certain  pre- 
ferred souls  would  be  sent  by  the  Immortals. 

It  has  been  thought  that  Homer  conceived  of  the 
earth  as  a  plane  surface.  But  he  speaks  of  the  broad 
back  of  the  sea  ;  and  the  sea,  to  an  acute  organ,  does 
not  suggest  a  plane.  It  is  the  sea  alone  which  conveys 
to  the  view  the  notion  of  the  curvature  of  the  globe. 
His  eye,  in  watching  ships  or  coast  elevations,  had 
probably  convinced  him  of  the  curvature  on  all  sides 
of  the  earth's  surface,  which  is  well  represented  by  the 
round  shield.  This  figure,  as  derived  from  the  human 
back,  and  more  especially  from  the  backs  of  animals, 
is  appropriate  to  the  description  of  a  broad  or  large 
curvature,  but  not  to  what  is  absolutely  flat.  It  is 
applied  to  hills  ;  but  never  to  a  plane  surface. 

4.  C.  Hades. — a.  But  the  clearest  proof  that  Homer 
did  not  conceive  the  earth  to  be  flat  is  to  be  drawn 
from  combining  together  the  following  particulars.  He 
believed  Hades,  the  place  of  the  dead,  to  be  under- 
neath our  feet,  and  phrases  signifying  downward  move- 
ment into  this  region  are  habitual  with  him.  The 
river  Peneios  was  a  branch  or  arm  of  Styx;  and 
therefore  communicated  with  it  underground.  A  sup- 
pliant, in  addressing  the  god  Aidoneus,  embraces  the 
ground.  Tartaros,  as  far  below  Hades  as  the  heaven 
stands  from  the  earth,  is  in  the  deepest  cleft  or  hollow 
of  the  "ground." 

b.  Yet  there  is  nowhere  a  reference  to  any  passage 
through  the  solid  ground ;  and,  on  the  contrary,  both 
Odusseus,  in  his  visit  to  the  Under-world,  and  the 
spirits  of  the  Suitors  also,  are  distinctly  represented  as 
travelling  to  it  along  the    surface.     At   the   farthest 


56  HOMER,  [CHAP. 

point  of  this,  Odusseus  has  to  navigate,  for  a  distance 
not  measured,  the  great  earth-surrounding  river  Okea- 
nos ;  and,  on  the  farther  side  of  the  stream,  he  enters 
the  realm  of  Aides  and  Persephone. 

c.  In  the  sky,  which  Homer  may  have  thought  to 
be  a  solid,  the  moon  and  stars  perform  their  revolutions, 
and  the  Sun  travels  daily  from  the  eastern  to  the 
western  horizon.  Finding  his  way  onward  from  his 
resting-place,  he  is  again  ready  in  the  morning  for  his 
work.  But  he  appears  to  pass  over  the  tract  of  Hades, 
for  he  threatens  the  Olympian  Assembly  that,  unless 
they  duly  support  his  dignity,  he  will  cease  shining  for 
them,  and  will  pour  his  light  upon  the  region  of  the 
dead. 

5.  D,  Tartaros. — The  fourth  division  of  the 
Kosmos  is  altogether  special  and  preternatural.  It 
is  called  Tartaros.  Man  has  no  concern  with  it ;  even 
criminals  of  our  race  are  punished  in  the  less  profound 
Under-world.  It  is  "in  the  lowest  deep  a  lower  deep," 
reserved  for  the  wicked  and  rebellious  Immortals ;  it 
is  the  counterpart  of  heaven,  standing  to  the  Under- 
earth  as  the  heaven  stands  to  the  Upper  or  inhabited 
world-surface. 

6.  Poetical  Licence.— The  poet  had  not  the 
means,  and  probably  did  not  care,  to  apply  an  exact 
mensuration  to  conceptions  lying  beyond  the  bounds 
of  sense  and  experience,  in  the  case  either  of  his 
Heaven  or  his  Under-world.  Yet  we  are  compelled  by 
tlie  foregoing  facts  to  assume  that  in  his  mind  he 
vaguely  folded  the  earth-surface  into  a  solid,  and  gave 
it  a  mouth  or  aperture  beneath.  This  supposition  is 
favoured  by  the  fact  that  the  Chaldaean  cosniologists 
conceived  the  earth  to  be  shaped  spherically  like  an 
orange,  but  with  a  part  sliced  off  the  top,  the  flat  side 
representing  the  entrance  into  Hades. 

7.  Figure  of  the  Earth-surface. — As  to  the 
superficial  form  of  the  earth,  we  have  a  guide  to  the 
ideas  of  Homer  in  the  famous  account  of  the  Shield 


v.]  GEOGRAPHY.  57 

of  Achilles,  with  its  various  compartments.  Round 
the  whole  runs  the  river  Okeanos.  This  arrangement 
shows  that  he  gave  to  the  earth-surface  the  form  of  a 
shield.  But  he  has  shields  which  are  oblong  and 
compared  to  a  tower,  as  that  of  Aias  j  and  also  shields 
which  are  circular,  and  compared  to  the  moon.  Of 
these  two  forms,  it  does  not  seem  quite  certain  which 
he  meant  to  suggest.  It  has  been  common  to  suppose 
it  was  the  round  form.  This  best  lends  itself  to  the 
arrangement  probably  signified  for  the  compartments, 
with  the  earth  and  celestial  bodies  in  the  centre ;  and 
also  to  the  expression  at  the  close  about  the  mighty 
ocean-river  flowing  round  about  the  shield. 

8.  Conventional  and  Mythological  Division. 
— Such,  as  far  as  it  can  be  made  out,  is  the  truj 
physical  cosmology  on  which  the  poems  are  based. 
They  have  however  another  conventional  or  mytho- 
logical scheme,  according  to  which  the  four  divisions 
are  :  i.  Heaven,  or  the  upper  region,  both  of  aither^ 
or  clear  air,  and  oiaer,  cloud  or  vapour.  This  is  given  to 
Zeus  by  lot.  2.  Sea,  given  in  like  manner  to  Poseidon. 
3.  Hades,  the  third  share,  falls  to  Aidoneus.  4.  The 
Earth,  including  Olumpos,  is  common  ground  for  all. 


CHAPTER  V. 

GEOGRAPHY. 

I.  Homer's  Means  of  Knowledge  in  Geo- 
graphy.— In  order  to  estimate  the  geography  of 
Homer,  that  is  to  say  his  knowledge  of  the  several 
configurations  upon  the  surface  of  the  earth,  the  first 
requisite  is  to  remember  that,  while  we  draw  from 
maps  accurately  measured,  he  drew  only  from  his 
own  experience,  and  from  oral  report.  Again,  the 
knowledge  conveyed  by  mere  experience  to  an  indi- 
vidual in  topography,  which  is  a  small  fragment,  as  it 


58  nOMEK.  [CHAP. 

were,  broken  off  from  geography,  may  be  tolerably 
complete  ;  but,  as  far  as  it  is  on  a  larger  scale,  must  be 
vague.  Distances  were  only  measured  by  the  eye, 
and  by  time  in  traversing  them.  The  bearings  of 
land  and  sea  were  taken  with  reference  to  the  points 
of  the  compass,  which  he  knew  only  in  connection 
>vith  the  sun,  rising  and  setting  at  given  points,  and 
with  four  winds.  Between  these  he  divided  the 
entire  circle  of  the  horizon ;  so  that  the  winds  of 
Homer  are  not  mere  indications  of  points  but  cover 
large  arcs.     They  are 

1.  Boreas,  from  N.  to  E.  but  leaning  to  N. 

2.  Zephuros,  from  N.  to  W.  but  leaning  to  W. 

3.  Euros,  from  E.  to  S.  but  leaning  to  E. 

4.  Notos,  from  W.  to  S.  but  leaning  to  S. 

2.  Countries  apprehended  by  Phoenician 
Report. — Again,  as  to  what  he  knew  by  report.  Where 
the  region  was  one  frequented  by  his  countrymen,  he 
would  have  the  opportunity  of  correcting  error  by 
various  and  repeated  information.  Beyond  the  sphere 
of  Hellenic  experience,  he  depended  upon  foreigners, 
that  is  to  say,  upon  the  great  navigators  of  the  day, 
called  Phoenicians.  The  regions  made  known  by 
them  may  be  recognised  by  these  two  marks — first 
they  are  the  seat  of  the  marvellous  ;  secondly,  he 
(save  once)  never  defines  at  all  the  sea-distances 
between  two  of  them,  but  only  between  some  one 
of  them  and  some  point  of  the  Hellenic  lands,  to 
which  he  applies  his  usual  measure  of  so  many  days' 
voyage  with  a  favourable  wind.  These  two  spheres, 
of  Hellenic  and  Phcenician  experience  respectively,  it 
may  be  convenient  to  call  by  the  names  of  the  Inner 
and  the  Outer  Geography.  There  is  also  a  border-lard 
between  them,  embracing  especially  the  coasts  and 
countries  of  the  South-east  Mediterranean,  in  which 
Menelaos  travels,  and  which  the  poet  treats  as  lards  of 
fact,  not  of  fiction.  As  to  the  hearsay  derived  from 
the  Phoenicians,  we  should  bear  in  mind  that  early 


v.]  GEOGRAPHY.  59 

navigators  exaggerate  without  fear,  both  to  enhance  the 
interest  of  their  tales,  and  to  deter  inquirers  from 
trespassing  on  the  ground  where  they  drive  a  profitable 
business  ;  yet  so  that  some  features  of  the  original 
can  commonly  be  traced  in  the  caricature. 

3.  Countries  Known  by  Experience. — In 
two  cases  alone,  those  of  Ithaca  and  of  the  Trojan 
Plain,  has  Homer  given  us  indications  so  minute  as 
to  be  properly  topographical ;  but  he  had  a  fair 
general  acquaintance  with  the  island  group  in  the 
north-east  of  the  Archipelago.  The  only  country  of 
which  he  shows  a  passable  geographical  knowledge  is 
continental  Greece,  includmg  Thessaly  on  the  east  as 
far  as  Mount  Pindos,  but  not  extending  on  the  west 
beyond  Aitolia ;  and  including  also  one  or  two  of  the 
islands.  His  description  is  here  thickly  studded  with 
towns,  inland  as  well  as  on  the  coast.  Among  the 
Boiotoi  alone  we  have  twenty-seven,  with  a  rich 
abundance  of  visible  characteristics;  such  as  well- 
built,  wealthy,  beautiful,  lofty. 

There  are  no  tracts  to  the  west  of  Greece  which 
we  can  bring  within  the  Inner  Geography ;  nor  has 
the  poet  a  single  trustworthy  trace  of  the  Italian 
peninsula.  On  the  north,  his  account  of  Scherie 
seems  to  be  based  upon  the  reports  of  navigators 
about  Corfu ;  but  he  evidently  places  it,  on  his 
brain-map,  at  a  point  much  beyond  the  actual 
distance.  Moreover,  although  he  enumerates  the 
names  of  certain  tribes  beyond  the  Balkans,  he  looks 
upon  Pieria,  immediately  contiguous  to  Thessaly, 
as  the  limit  of  the  land  northwards,  and  the  great 
northern  and  north  eastern  mass  of  Europe  was  taken 
by  him  to  be  sea.  He  knew  generally  the  position 
of  the  Bosporos,  and  had  a  certain  amount  of  in- 
formation on  the  northern,  as  well  as  on  the  western, 
coast  of  Asia  Minor.  But,  in  the  Trojan  Catalogue 
of  the  Second  Iliad,  Miletos  is  the  only  town  men- 
tioned  upon  the  whole  length  of  these  coasts  ;  the 


6o  HOMER.  [chap. 

mountains  he  names  are  coast  mountains,  and  there 
is  not  a  single  passage  indicating  knowledge  of  the 
interior.  Beyond  Lycia  he  gives  no  particulars ;  but 
knows  the  general  position  of  Phoenicia,  with  Sidon, 
of  Egypt,  and  of  a  limited  tract  to  the  westward, 
which  he  terms  Libya.  All  this  country  would  appear 
to  form  the  extreme  limit  of  even  rare  Greek  visits, 
and,  in  a  qualified  sense  only,  to  belong  to  the  Inner 
Geography,  or  land  of  fact. 

4.  The  Outer  Geography,  Eastwards. — 
The  Outer  Geography,  or  wonderland,  has  for  its 
exterior  boundary  the  great  river  Okeanos,  a  noble 
conception,  in  everlasting  flux  and  reflux,  roundabout 
the  territory  given  to  living  man.  On  its  farther  bank 
lies  the  entrance  to  the  Under-world  ;  and  the  passage, 
which  connects  the  sea  {Thalassa,  or  Pontos)  with 
Okeanos,  lies  in  the  east :  *'  where  are  the  abodes  of 
the  morning-goddess,  and  the  risings  of  the  sun" 
{Od.  xii.  3).  Here,  however,  he  makes  his  hero 
confess  that  he  is  wholly  out  of  his  bearings,  and 
cannot  well  say  where  the  sun  is  to  set  or  rise  {Od.  x. 
139).  This  bewildered  state  of  mind  may  be  reason- 
ably  explained.  The  whole  northern  region,  of  sea  as 
he  supposed  it,  from  west  to  east,  was  known  to  him 
only  by  Phoenician  reports.  One  of  these  told  him 
of  a  Kimmerian  land  deprived  perpetually  of  sun  or 
daylight.  Another  of  a  land,  also  in  the  north,  where 
a  man,  who  could  dispense  with  sleep,  might  earn 
double  wages,  as  there  was  hardly  any  night.  He 
probably  had  the  first  account  from  some  sailor  who 
had  visited  the  northern  latitudes  in  summer ;  and  the 
second  from  one  who  had  done  the  like  in  winter. 
They  were  at  once  true,  and  for  him  irreconcilable. 
So  he  assigned  the  one  tale  to  a  northern  country 
(Kimmerie)  on  the  ocean-mouth  eastwards,  near  the 
island  of  Kirke,  and  the  other  to  the  land  of  the  Lais- 
trugones  westwards  but  also  northern,  and  lying  at 
some  days  distance  from  Aiolie :  but  was  compelled. 


v.]  GEOGRAPHY.  6i 

by  the  ostensible  contradiction,  to  throw  his  latitudes 
into  something  like  purposed  confusion. 

5.  Thence  Round  by  North  and  West. — 
While  these  lands,  and  the  island  of  Kalupso,  seem  to 
be  his  farthest  northward  points,  we  have  also  the 
island  called  Aiolie,  from  which  a  Zephuros  brought 
him  in  ten  days  sailing  within  sight  of  Ithaca.  This 
therefore  lay  between  the  west,  and  the  north-west.  It 
was,  in  the  poet's  mind,  a  clear  open  sea  all  the  way. 
In  the  west,  also,  we  find  the  Islands  of  the  Blest,  to 
which  Menelaos  has  a  promise  of  translation  on  his 
death.  We  then,  moving  southwards,  come  to  the  north 
coast  of  Africa,  on  which  Mr.  Brown  has  shown  that  we 
ought  to  place  the  land  of  the  Kuklopes.  After  them, 
as  we  move  eastwards,  we  reach  the  Lotos-Eaters.  The 
next  tract  is  Libya,  which  is  inhabited  by  men  of  no 
unusual  stamp  :  and.  at  this  point  we  have  left  the 
sphere  of  the  Outer-world.  From  hence  round  to  the 
Black  Sea,  passing  east  and  northward,  all  is  at  least 
partially  known  :  and  again  we  are  in  the  waters  of 
Aiaie,  Kirke's  isle,  where  we  entered  the  zone  of  the 
Outer  Geography. 

6.  The  Inner  Geography. — The  home,  or  Inner 
Geography  of  Homer,  is  limited,  at  the  most,  to  the 
Greek  Peninsula,  with  a  few  neighbouring  islands, 
and  to  the  line  of  coast  which  may  be  followed  by 
the  eye  from  Aitolia  to  the  Dardanelles,  and  from 
about  Sinope  10  a  point  a  little  beyond  Egypt  to 
the  west. 

7.  Relation  of  the  Two. — In  the  outer  zone, 
considered  as  a  whole,  we  find  no  trace  of  local  con- 
figuration as  it  actually  exists;  but  particular  traits  of 
spots  and  regions  are  put  together  by  the  poet  in 
his  brain,  and  set  down  upon  an  imagined  earth- 
surface  as  he  best  can.  Unhappily  many  writers 
have  insisted  upon  forcing  the  poetical  unity  of  his 
brain-chart,  not  indeed  into  conformity,  but  into 
general  and  systematic  relation  to  the   geographical 


62  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

realities,  with  th^  necessary  result  of  breaking  up 
the  first,  and  yet  establishing  no  clear  or  coherent 
connection  with  the  second. 

8.  Route  of  Odusseus. — According  to  the 
view  here  given,  the  voyage  of  Odusseus  first  goes 
(in  the  reverse  order  to  that  of  the  outline  just  given) 
southward  as  far  as  Africa;  then  westward  along 
the  African  coast ;  then  northwards  to  Aiolie.  From 
hence  still  further  north,  first  in  the  west,  then  in 
the  east,  where  day  and  night  each  in  turn  cover  the 
entire  circle  of  the  twenty-four  hours.  From  the  east- 
ward part  of  these  regions,  he  visits  the  Under-world. 
He  is  then  directed  homewards  by  a  narrow  passage, 
near  the  Bosporos,  and  the  route  of  the  ship  Argo. 
He  reaches  accordingly  Thrinakie,  the  island  of  the 
Sun,  and  seemingly  a  transcript,  as  to  form,  of  Sicily ; 
but  transplanted  eastwards  by  the  pojt,  probably 
from  his  associating  together  the  reports  of  the  Strait 
of  Messina  and  what  he  had  learned  of  the  Bosporos. 
Next,  a  tempest,  beginning  from  {notos)  the  south- 
west, drives  him  back  northwards  through  the  narrows; 
he  arrives  at  Ogugie,  the  island  of  Kalupso,  the  central 
point  of  the  unbounded  sea.  From  thence  a  passage 
of  more  than  seventeen  days  finally  brings  him  to 
Scherie,  on  the  border  of  the  known  geographical 
sphere.  But,  according  to  the  methods  of  interpre- 
tation which  have  been  principally  in  vogue,  the 
movements  of  Odusseus  never  embraced  the  east  and 
north  at  all,  and  did  not  reach  westwards  beyond 
Sicily,  the  Lipari  Islands,  and  the  coast  about 
Naples. 

9.  Arrangement  of  the  Catalogues.  —  In 
the  Achaian  Catalogue,  the  poet  arranges  the  different 
territories,  members  of  the  Greek  unity,  in  the  relative 
positions  known  to  the  historic  times.  At  least  this 
is  true  as  to  Southern  and  Middle  Greece,  with  the 
Greek  islands  :  it  is  more  difficult  to  trace  his  Thessa- 
iian  divisions,  where  the  political  divisions  are  less 


v.]  GEOGRAPHY.  63 

sharply  marked.  He  places  all  in  contiguous  groups, 
evidently  by  way  of  context,  to  assist  the  memory  : 
and  he  appears  to  pursue  a  similar  plan  in  the  Trojan 
Catalogue.  Even  in  Greece,  his  ideas  of  internal 
distances  can  be  but  vaguely  inferred  :  his  sea  distances 
about  the  Archipelago,  and  as  far  as  Egypt,  are  better 
marked. 

10.  Topography  of  Ithaca. — In  Ithaca  there  is 
no  caus:;  to  mipeach  his  topography  as  far  as  it  can 
be  traced;  except  that,  mentioning  its  two  great 
eminences,  he  gives  to  Mount  Neritos,  the  southern 
one,  a  preference  which  it  does  not  deserve,  the  two 
heights  being  nearly  equal :  and  the  greatest  diameter 
or  axis  of  the  island  is  also  inclined  too  much  to  the 
westward.  Its  harbour  is  described  with  pointed 
correctness,  as  is  its  general  form,  and  the  lower 
elevation  of  the  tract  towards  the  north.  The  spot 
now  called  Polis  agrees  with  all  his  indications  of  the 
capital,  in  which  the  Suitors  lived  dissolutely,  and 
where  Odusseus  had  held  his  paternal  reign.  There 
is  no  other  island,  to  which  his  descriptions  could  be 
made  over. 

11.  Topography  of  the  Trojan  Plain. — 
Equally  is  this  true  of  the  plain  in  Troas,  to  which  he 
has  given  an  immortality  of  fame.  Here  the  operations 
of  two  armies  require  a  topography  both  comprehensive 
and  minute  We  have  the  limiting  lines  of  Ida  and 
the  sea,  the  Scamandrian  plain,  near  the  River  Scaman- 
dros,  forming  the  north  and  west  portion  of  the  plain 
of  Troy;  the  Ileian  plain,  lying  south  and  perhaps 
east  from  the  city ;  the  plain  mentioned  generally, 
and  the  roll  or  shelf  (///;'6'jw^i')  upon  it;  the  junction 
of  the  rivers  Simoeis  and  Scamander,  and  yet  their 
two  separate  mouths ;  the  ford  which  crosses  the 
Xanthos.  Then  there  is  the  line  of  ships  along  the 
shore  from  east  to  west,  with  the  quarters  of  Aias  and 
Achilles,  perhaps  as  the  strongest  among  the  chiefs, 
at  the  two  extremities. 

5* 


64  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

12.  Position    and    Notes    of  the    City.— An 

examination  of  the  position  taken  by  Ares  (xx.  48-53) 
when  the  Theomachy  approaches,  tends  to  show  that 
the  city  was  near  the  Simoeis.  This  corresponds  with 
the  belief  suggested  by  the  discoveries  of  Schliemann, 
that  the  hill  of  Hissarlik  was  the  site  of  Troy.  Jf 
this  were  the  site,  the  movements  of  the  chiefs  and 
armies  between  the  town  and  camp  come  within 
limits  locally  admissible.  We  have  then  the  Skaian 
gates  of  the  town,  towards  the  shore,  and  the  Dardanian 
towards  the  old  mother-city  on  the  roots  of  Ida. 
Near  the  Skaian  entry  is  the  phegos,  believed  to  be  a 
kind  of  oak  :  near  the  city  are  also  the  wild  fig-tree  ; 
the  tomb  of  king  Ilos  its  founder,  a  point  convenient 
for  watch  outwards  ;  and  a  waggon-road,  so  called 
probably  because  the  lighter  chariot  was  more  free  in 
its  range  over  uneven  ground.  There  is  also  the 
mound  of  Aisuetes  northwards,  and  the  hillock  Batieia 
to  the  south.  The  interior  of  the  city  receives  marks 
of  individuality  in  the  great  Tower  upon  the  wall ;  the 
palaces  of  Priam,  Paris,  and  Hector  ;  the  temples  of 
Apollo  and  Athene  on  the  summit. 

13.  Identification  and  Accuracy.  — The  identi- 
fication of  these  descriptions  with  the  country  is 
undeniable.  The  most  serious  question  raised  with 
respect  to  their  accuracy  and  coherency  appears  to  be 
that  suggested  by  the  separate  mouths  of  rivers  which 
have  by  joining  become  one.  It  seems  possible,  how- 
ever, that  this  junction  was  by  a  bed  dry  in  summer, 
but  filled  at  other  seasons  by  the  floods.  This  would 
well  allow  the  separate  mouths  ;  and  it  is  in  some 
degree  supported  by  the  invitation  of  Scamandros  to 
his  brother  Simoeis  in  the  Twenty-first  Book  to  join  him 
for  the  purpose  of  overwhelming  the  fatal  Achilles  with 
their  united  waters. 


VI  ]  MYTHOLOGY.  65 


CHAPTER  VI. 

MYTHOLOGY;    OR,    THE    OLYMPIAN    SYSTEM. 

I.   Marked     Features    of    the    Scheme. — A 

great  variety  of  causes  invest  the  Homeric  mythology, 
which  I  have  called  the  Olympian  system,  with  an  ex- 
traordinary interest.  One  among  these  is  the  strong, 
subtle,  and  highly  dramatic  conception  of  many 
of  the  personages-  Another  is  their  sympathy  and 
communion  with  the  action  of  the  poems  through- 
out. A  third  is  the  principle  of  anthropophuism,  to 
which  they  are  generally  mada  to  conform,  and 
through  which  they  reflect  the  image  of  a  peculiar 
magnified  humanity  on  a  very  grand  scale.  Fourthly, 
the  composite  nature  of  the  system,  and  the  relations 
of  its  various  members  to  various  portions  of  the 
human  family,  exhibit  to  us  the  Greek  or  Achaian 
nation  in  process  of  construction  through  manifold 
influences  and  admixtures,  and  supply  us  with  a  key  to 
much  of  the  ethnology  of  the  poems  and  the  time. 
Fifthly,  the  id 2a  of  the  Olympian  system  is  closely 
associated  with  the  progress  and  consummation  of 
Greek  Art.  Sixthly,  in  this  splendid  work  of  Art,  for 
such  it  is  itself,  we  trace  the  real  elements  of  worship 
and  of  an  ethical  system,  deriving  its  strength  from 
obligations  to  an  unseen  Power;  to  a  plurality,  whicn 
is  also  to  a  great  extent  an  unity,  and  which  rules  the 
v/orld.  Lasdy,  while  some  portions  of  the  scheme 
point  us  towards  an  earlier  and  also  a  ruder  state, 
and  others  in  the  direction  of  a  later  and  corrupt 
civilisation,  a  third  portion  reveals  a  primitive  basis 
of  monotheism,  and  ideas  in  connection  with  it, 
which  seem  to  defy  explanation,  except  when  we 
compare  them  with  the  most  ancient  of  the  Hebrew 
traditions. 


66  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

2.  The  Zeus  of  Homer. — As  respects  the 
drawing  of  character,  I  would  select  from  the  poems 
of  Homer,  as  examples,  his  Zeus,  his  Hera,  his 
Athene,  his  Thetis,  and  his  Iris.  In  the  conception 
of  Zeus,  we  find  the  most  varied  assemblage  of 
elements.  He  combines,  more  than  any  other  deity, 
the  human  and  the  theistic  quality  ;  and  in  his  charac- 
ter as  a  god  exhibits  the  profound  moral  attributes  of 
an  original  monotheism.  At  one  time  he  is  the  ideal 
Providence,  upholding  the  order  and  the  whole  frame 
of  things.  At  another,  he  is  the  civil  governor  in  the 
skies,  curbing  and  controuling  with  a  true  poHtical  spirit 
the  newly-compacted  society  of  gods  over  whom  he 
rules.  Here  he  often  closely  resembles  Agamemnon  ; 
but  by  and  bye  he  will  touch  also  upon  Falstaif.  We 
owe  to  him  by  etymology  the  word  jovial ;  and  it  is 
truly  descriptive  of  his  character  on  its  human  side. 
As  the  very  size  and  immeasurable  waist  of  Falstaff 
have  to  do  with  the  character  of  his  mind,  so  large- 
ness in  all  things  is  an  unfailing  characteristic  of 
Zeus.  His  intrigues  are  unbounded.  His  roguish 
joy  in  witnessing  from  Ida  tlie  struggles  of  an 
Achaian  with  a  Trojan  soldiery,  may  call  up  the 
recollection  of  the  rich  humour  of  Shakespeare's 
knight  on  the  peppering  of  his  recruits.  But  the 
same  sentiment  rises  out  of  this  miniature  to  a  higher 
scale  and  level,  when  he  comes  to  revel  in  that  fierce 
encounter  of  the  gods,  which  made  Aidoneus,  king 
below,  shudder  and  bound  from  off  his  throne,  lest 
the  crust  of  earth  itself  should  break  beneath  their 
strokes  and  movements,  and  the  ever-unseen  realm 
at  length  yawn  visibly  before  mortals  and  immortals 
too.  "Go  ye,"  he  says  to  them  (xx.  22)  with  a 
strange  mixture  of  merriment  and  malice,  *'go  ye 
among  the  Achaians  and  the  Trojans ;  I  bide  here 
in  the  bosom  of  Olumpos,  to  delight  my  soul  as  I 
look  on."  And  again  (xxi.  389),  "  His  soul  laughed 
within  him,  as  he  beheld  the  gods  falling  to  in  batile." 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY.  67 

Yet,  behind  the  complex  and  ever-active  theotechnic 
machinery  of  the  poem,  with  its  thundering  wheels 
and  mythological /^r^/>^^r;z^//^,  there  is  still  the  pres- 
ence and  operation  of  an  august  personage,  who  has 
regard  to  piety  wherever  it  is  found ;  ''  Even  in  their 
perishing,  I  care  for  them  "  (xx.  21)  ;  and  who  works 
incessantly,  effectively,  and  without  noise  for  the  per- 
manent ends  of  justice  among  men,  which  were  signally 
wrought  out  by  the  punishment  and  fall  of  guilty  Troy. 
That  figure  is  no  other  than  Zeus  in  his  higher  capacity. 
He  loved  Troy  for  its  abundant  sacrifices ;  but  his 
higher  character  forbade  his  acting  to  avert  its  doom. 
The  same  ideas  operate  in  the  Odyssey^  where  (except 
to  avenge  a  high  profanation  offered  to  the  god 
Helios)  he  never  intervenes  at  all  until  a  few  hnes 
before  the  close.  In  the  Iliad  mainly,  in  the  Odyssey 
entirely,  his  will  is  worked  out  by  other  divine  agents, 
themselves  exercising  their  personal  freedom,  but 
bringing  about  the  purposes  of  a  counsel  higher  and 
larger  than  their  own.  This  counsel  has  its  back- 
ground and  its  ultimate  root  in  pure  deity,  and  for 
pure  deity  Zeus  is  often  a  svTionym  in  Homer. 

3.  His  Grandeur. — Wherever  he  intervenes, 
even  though  outwitted  or  over-persuaded  on  the 
point  immediately  at  issue,  it  is  invariably  with 
grandeur.  Won  by  Thetis,  he  accords  to  her  only  a 
symbol  in  the  nod  which  shakes  Olumpos,  and  keeps 
his  counsel  to  himself.  Circumvented  and  enticed  by 
Hera,  his  indulgence  is  veiled  in  a  cloud  of  golden 
beauty,  to  which  Earth  answers  by  a  burst  of  fresh 
herbage  and  choice  flowers.  He  indicates  his  great 
decrees  on  the  issues  of  batde  by  exhibiting  his 
balances  in  the  skies. 

4.  The  Prayer  of  Achilles.  —  Besides  the 
solemn  but  shadowy  figure,  visible  behind  the  general 
theurgy  of  the  poems,  we  have  a  more  distinct  mani- 
festation in  a  solemn  prayer,  uttered  by  Achilles  at 
the  critical  moment,  when  he  is  sending  forth  his  loved 


fig  HOMER,  [CHAP. 

Patroclos  to  the  war.  This  prayer  is  of  a  kind  rare 
in  the  poems,  in  which  a  human  being  asks  anything 
on  behalf  of  another  human  being,  and  not  simply  for 
himself.  Though  Hera  and  Athene  had  been  the 
deities,  who  interposed  to  prevent  his  going  to  violence 
with  Agamemnon  in  the  first  Book,  he  does  not  pray 
to  either  of  these,  but  to  the  Supreme.  The  god  is 
addressed  as  the  Zeus  of  Dodona,  the  Pelasgic  Zeus 
of  the  old  inhabitants ;  but  having  also  the  Helloi 
for  his  ministers,  sires  of  the  Hellenic  race.  More- 
over, they  are  represented  as  serving  him,  not  as 
a  priestly  caste  with  sacrifices,  but  as  hupophetai^ 
interpreters  and  declarers  of  his  will.  Thus  he  is 
signified  as  the  god  of  wide  power,  the  god  of  no  single 
race,  the  god  that  looks  for  obedience,  and  towards 
whom  we  have  the  ties  of  moral  obligation.  In 
this  prayer  there  is  in  truth  a  noteworthy  absence  of 
what  may  be  termed  pagan  elements,  and  a  marked 
exhibition  of  the  idea  of  supreme  and  governing 
godhead. 

5.  The  Athene  of  Homer. — Less  diversified 
in  ingredients,  but  as  to  some  points  even  more  in- 
teresting, is  the  wonderful  character  of  Athene,  which 
I  at  once  present,  because,  while  Hera  is  mythologi- 
cally  nearer  to  Zeus,  his  great  daughter  is  nearer  to 
him  in  the  intellectual  and  spiritual  order.  As  the 
anthropomorphic  tracings  are  deepest  upon  the  Zeus  of 
Homer,  so  they  are  the  least  legible  upon  his  Athene. 
She  is  a  goddess,  not  a  god ;  but  she  has  nothing  of 
sex  except  the  gender,  nothing  of  the  woman  except 
the  form,  sublimated  and  made  awful  with  fire  (glau- 
kopis)  flashing  from  the  eye.  She  is  a  true  impersona- 
tion of  the  logos  or  reason ;  not  of  abstract  intuitions, 
but  of  an  operative  understanding,  which  never  errs 
in  fitting  means  to  ends.  While  Zeus  has  the  cares 
and  weight  of  a  general  sovereignty,  and  wakes  as  the 
rest  both  of  gods  and  men  are  sleeping,  Athene  has  a 
narrower  sphere,  but  is  more  completely  mistress  in  it ; 


VI.]  MYTHOL  OG  Y.  69 

shows  no  sign  of  being  oppressed  by  her  responsibili- 
ties, and  never  on  any  single  occasion  fails  to  attain 
her  aim. 

6.  Her  Relation  to  Morality. — Though  she 
works  in  concurrence  with  general  justice,  and  with  the 
providential  order,  she  is  c^Ttainly  in  morals  no  purist, 
for  she  claims  an  unrivalled  excellence  in  wile  and 
stratagem.  From  the  licentious  elements,  on  the  other 
hand,  which  Syrian  and  other  Eastern  communications 
were  already  forcing  into  the  Olympian  system,  her 
nature  is  wholly  abhorrent.  So  much  so,  that  through 
the  long  ages  of  its  progressive  corruption  she  remains 
the  Virgo  intemerata,  wholly  untainted  by  it.  The 
magnificent  intellectual  power,  of  which  she  is  the 
representative,  is  neither  degraded  at  any  point  by 
appetite,  nor  ever  disturbed  by  passion.  Sleepless 
and  active  as  the  merest  political  partisan,  she  is  as 
calm  as  if  she  dwelt  in  the  stillness  of  an  Epicurean 
heaven.  Most  other  gods,  and  even  Zeus  himself, 
may  be  greedy  of  sacrifice,  its  fume  and  flavour  :  but 
neither  the  savoury  reek  from  earth,  nor  the  cup  of 
ambrosia  at  Olympian  banquets,  are  ever  associated 
with  her  individually  as  enjoying  them.  She  moves 
upon  an  orbit  of  mind  alone :  and,  whatever  may 
have  been  elsewhere  or  before,  neither  in  Homer, 
nor  in  the  after-time,  is  she  ever  connected  with 
a  Nature-Power.  Indeed,  she  is  scarcely  ever  de- 
scribed by  epithets  of  personal  beauty.  Homer  has 
kept  carefully  in  the  background  the  legend  of  the 
original  offence  which  was  given  by  Paris  to  Athene 
and  to  Hera,  in  awarding  the  prize  of  beauty  to  Aphro- 
dite. He  makes  but  one  allusion  to  it,  near  the  close 
of  the  Iliad.  It  was  a  Troic  legend,  and  did  not  well 
assort  with  the  nobleness  of  the  picture,  by  which  he 
meant  to  present  Athene  to  his  countrymen.  Whether 
her  name  represents  the  dawn  in  an  Eastern  tongue, 
or  is  inverted  from  the  Neith  of  Egypt,  or  what  else, 
matters  little.     It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  Apollo  of 


70  HOMER.  [chap. 

Homer's  time  was  associated,  in  the  religion  of  Troas, 
with  the  Sun  ;  but  in  the  Olympian  system  the  connec- 
tion is  carefully  shut  out  by  giving  to  the  Sun  a  well- 
marked  separate  individuality.  That  system  is  not  so 
exclusively  Greek,  as  to  exclude  exotic  personages ; 
but  every  deity,  that  has  a  ruling  force  within  the 
circle  of  Achaian  life,  is  stricdy  cast  by  Homer  in 
the  mould  of  Achaian  ideas.  Nowhere  outside  her- 
self has  she  contact  with  material  nature  :  she  i«, 
though  in  bodily  form,  a  mental  organism. 

7.  Her  eminently  Practical  Character  — 
But  we  must  beware  of  viewing  her  through  the 
rather  opaque  veil  of  the  Roman  and  later  mytho- 
logy, which,  recognising  her  as  a  goddess  of  thought, 
overlooks  the  fact  that  she  is  above  all  things  the 
goddess  of  action.  As  the  working  reason,  she  moulds 
daily  practice :  influences  the  minds  of  men ;  nay, 
darkens  them  penally,  by  obduracy  of  heart,  in  the 
case  of  the  guilty  Suitors  of  the  Odyssey^  even  as  in 
Scripture  God,  we  are  told,  hardened  the  heart  of 
Pharaoh.  She,  and  she  alone  of  the  whole  Olympian 
Court,  stands  in  such  close,  inward,  personal  relations 
to  the  soul  and  spirit  of  the  individual  man,  as  even 
to  recall  the  ideas  which  form  the  main  basis  of  the 
Hebrew  Psalter. 

8.  Her  Diversified  Attributes :  War.~But 
besides  being,  in  a  peculiar  and  enlarged  sense,  the 
goddess  of  conduct,  she  has  three  other  great  func- 
tions :  she  is  the  goddess  of  War,  the  goddess  of 
industrial  production,  and  the  goddess  of  Polity, 

In  the  first  of  these  three  capacities  she  appears  on 
the  Shield  of  Achilles,  together  with  Ares  ;  and  they 
are  the  heads  of  the  rival  armies.  But  her  superiority 
to  him  in  war  is  unquestionable  :  she  gives  that  force 
to  the  spear  of  Diomed  which  pierces  his  divine  flesh, 
and  sends  him  howling  to  Olumpos :  she  lays  him 
prostrate  with  a  mighty  stone,  when  he  stretches  over 
seven  (say)  roods  of  land,  his  arms  rattling  around 


VI.  J  MYTHOLOGY.  71 

him,  and  his  hair  begrimed  with  dust.  When,  with 
Hera,  she  descends  in  the  fifth  Iliad  to  assist  the 
Greeks,  she  casts  away  her  feminine  mantle,  puts  on 
the  tunic,  assumes  the  gold-tasseled  imperishable  aigis, 
grasps  the  stout  and  mighty  spear,  and  mounts  into  the 
chariot  as  the  warrior-deity,  while  Hera  is  content 
to  drive.  But  she  represents  intelligent  war,  Ares 
merely  the  brute  work  of  destruction. 

9.  Industry. — Again,  she  is  the  goddess  of  in- 
dustrial production.  She  instructed  Penelope,  and 
the  women  of  Scherie  ;  she  inspired  artificers,  not  only 
the  shipbuilder  and  the  carpenter,  but  the  smith 
also,  thus  overlapping  the  province  of  Hephaistos, 
like  that  of  Ares,  by  virtue  of  her  higher  place  and 
origin.  When  the  daughters  of  Pandareos  receive 
their  accomplishments  from  the  several  deities,  she 
endows  them  with  industrial  skill.  This  function 
might  perhaps  be  thought  to  belong  more  strictly 
to  the  attributes  of  the  "beneficial"  Hermes,  who 
appears  to  be  the  god  of  gain  and  increase.  Possibly 
he  may  be  conceived  as  the  mercantile  deity  of  com- 
munication and  exchange,  she  as  the  goddess  of  what 
we  term  manufacture.  But  his  possession  of  the 
industrial  attribute  would,  as  we  have  seen  from  the 
cise  of  Ares,  be  no  obstruction  to  her  paramount 
hold  upon  it. 

10.  r^olity. — But,  as  the  wisdom-goddess,  she  is  also 
the  state-goddess  ;  for  already,  in  the  Greek  idea,  the 
State  was  the  highest  incorporation  of  wisdom.  From 
this  office  are  derived  many  of  her  epithets  :  people- 
leading,  city-guarding,  protectress,  and  the  like.  It 
is  probably  in  this  capacity,  as  defender  of  States^ 
that  she  is  invoked  by  the  Trojans  in  their  difficulty  : 
for,  in  the  immediate  matter  of  the  War,  she  was  their 
active  opponent.  But  State -care  is  only  a  branch 
of  her  vast  ard  active  power  in  the  superintendence 
of  men.  And,  as  we  have  already  seen  her  covering 
the  mythological  ground  of  Ares  and. Hephaistos,  so 


72  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

in  her  political  attributes  she  takes  up  the  higher 
aspect  of  the  work,  that  pure  mythology  seems  to 
assign  to  Themis.  Her  special  relation  to  the  city  of 
Athens  is  indicated,  but  not  developed. 

11.  Her  Rank  and  Birth.— In  the  character  of 
Athene  there  is  a  very  strong  element  of  self-assertion. 
As  a  partisan  of  the  Achaian  cause,  she  incurs  the  dis- 
pleasure and  even  the  threats  of  Zeus  :  and  she  is  ex- 
hibited as  having  joined  in  the  grand  conspiracy  to 
dethrone  him,  which  Thetis  baffled.  Her  power  is 
conceived  of  so  highly,  that  it  seems  scarcely  to  bear 
a  superior.  Down  to  the  time  of  Horace,  she  stood 
as  really  the  second  deity  in  estimation :  and,  in  mere 
precedence,  she  sat  by  Zeus  at  the  Olympian  banquet, 
but  probably  on  th"  left  hand,  with  Hera  on  the  right. 
In  the  later  ages,  we  have  the  fully-developed  legend 
that  she  sprang,  adult  and  full -armed,  from  the  head  of 
Zeus.  Of  this  legend  some  words  of  Homer  (//.  v.  880) 
appear  to  convey  the  substance  :  and  her  exemption 
/rom  the  ordinary  law  of  generation  must  indicate  an 
extraordinary  nearness  to  the  chief  of  the  gods. 

12.  Source  of  the  Homeric  Conception. — 
Even  what  has  here  been  said  must  raise  the  question, 
From  whence  has  a  conception  so  powerful  and  lofty 
as  that  of  the  Homeric  Athene  been  obtained  ?  Most 
of  the  Olympian  gods,  though  they  are  all  more  or 
less  costumed,  so  to  speak,  in  divine  attributes,  yet 
seem  to  carry  them  as  attached  from  without,  and  to 
want  the  highest  basis  for  their  character.  In  this  sub- 
lime personage  we  begin  to  suspect  that  we  are  dealing 
with  something  profoundly  divine.  It  would  require 
an  investigation  wholly  beyond  the  bounds  of  this 
work  to  show  in  *what  minute  and  comprehensive 
detail  the  character  is  developed  throughout  the  poems. 
In  general  terms,  her  traits  are  an  intellectual  supre- 
macy, a  perfect  exemption  from  infirmity,  a  complete 
detachment  from  the  material  world  and  the  limita- 
tions of  time  and  space,  worship  apparently  universal, 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY,  73 

the  possession  of  the  largest  theistic  attributes,  un- 
wearied activity  in  the  work  of  a  hving  Providence, 
uncontrolled  dominion  over  nature  and  the  mind. 

13.  Relation  to  Apollo  :  Resemblances  and 
Differences. — Most  of  these  traits  she  shares  with 
Apollo,  and  with  him  only  ;  and  these  two  are,  in 
certain  recurring  formulae  or  stock-lines,  associated,  as 
enjoying  superior  and  distinctive  honour,  sometimes 
alone,  sometimes  together  with  Zeus.  The  main 
differences  are,  that  Apollo  is  less  transcendent  in 
intellect,  and  less  active  as  a  Providence.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  has  a  special  office  as  the  minister  of 
death ;  the  gift  of  unsealing  the  future ;  and  above 
all  an  unvarying  conformity  to  the  will  of  Zeus,  to 

j  which  he  frequently  receives  a  special  commission  to 
fgive   effect.      In  her,  there   is  a  marked  resemblance 
to  the  Hebrew  tradition  of  the  Logos.      He  rather  ^ou,^^  H 
corresponds  with  the  Seed  of  the  woman,  which  was  a^  ^ 
to  bruise  the  serpent's  head,  while  the  serpent  bruised  Sc^mA. 
the  woman's  heel.     So  in  Homer  Apollo  appears  as  /  ^ 
the  destroyer  of  rebels  against  deity,  his  mother  Leto       ] 
as  having  had  violence  offered  her  by  one  of  them 
(Tituos) ;  and  the  god  himself  as  signally  honoured 
at  Putho,  the  Delphoi  of  after-times,   a  place  which 
tradition  associates  with  the  ancient  worship  of  the 
serpent. 

14.  The  Hera  of  Homer.— The  character  of 
Hera  is  less  intellectual,  less  complex,  less  wakeful, 
less  sublime;  but  more  human,  more  within  the  mianner 
of  our  understandings,  than  that  of  Athene.  As  the 
sister  and  the  wife  of  Zeus,  we  must  understand  her 
to  enjoy  precedence  in  Olumpos.  But  no  more  can 
she  in  importance,  than  in  sublimity,  be  compared  to 
the  goddess  of  the  flashing  eye.  They  are  however 
in  no  sense  rivals,  and  they  act  in  a  singular  harmony 
together. 

15.  Reflected  Prerogatives  of  Zeus.— The 
grandest   element    in  the    character    of  Hera    is    her 


U  '     HOMER,  [CHAP. 

power  over  nature.  She  conducted  the  ship  of  Jason 
ttirough  the  perilous  passage  of  the  Sumple^ades. 
She,  and  she  only,  after  Zeus,  commands  the  services 
of  Iris,  the  messenger  or  angel-goddess.  She  orders 
the  Sun  to  return  to  rest,  that  the  long  day,  which  was 
to  be  the  last  of  Trojan  prosperity,  may  reach  its 
close  ;  and  he  obeys.  As  she  despatched  Athene  to 
restrain  the  hand  of  Achilles  in  the  great  debate,  and 
thus  to  save  the  life  of  Agamemnon,  so  with  Athene, 
when  the  King  goes  forth  to  fight,  so  she  thunders 
in  his  honour.  It  seems  quite  evident,  that  these 
prerogatives  are  as  it  were  reflected  upon  her  by 
her  intimate  association  with  Zeus :  for  they  are 
not  sustained  by  any  other  corresponding  qualities  of 
character  or  office. 

i6.  She  is    eminently    National. — She  is    in 
truth,  as  will  have  been  seen  from  this  enumeration, 
a  great  national  divinity  :  and  in  Argolis,  the  seat  of 
Pelopid  power,  she  retained  through  after  ages  the  para- 
mount place,  in  that  capacity,  which  the  poems   give 
her.     As  she  stands  in  Homer,  she  is  without  doubt 
no  part  of  an   original  or   pure  tradition,  but  is  pro- 
bably the  Hellenised   form   into  which  certain  other 
traditions,  older   or    foreign,  had  been  refined.     Her 
n  ime  suggests  a  substantial  identity  with    Era,  as  the 
Eirth-goddess.    We  have  accordingly  no  acknowledged 
earth-goddess  in  the  poems  :  but  a  Gaia  only,  so  with- 
drawn from  action,  and  so   dmily  impersonated,  as  to 
be  invisible,  and  wholly  shut  out  from  rivalry.     Also 
a  Demeter,  who  seems  to  have  been  the  Earth-mother, 
or  Mother-earth,  in  some  other  old  Pelasgic  thearchy, 
and  who  is  similarly  thrown  into  the  background.     It 
is    perhaps    in   accommodation    to   this   arrangement 
that,  in  his   mythological  distribution  of  the  parts  of 
the  universe.  Homer  has  not  allotted  the  earth  to  any 
one  in  particular,  but  leaves  it  to  be  used  in  common 
by  each  of  the   three   divine   brethren.      Again,  the 
epithet  hopis,  or  ox-eyed,  constantly  applied  to  Hera, 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY.  75 

may  signify  a  relation  to  the  Egyptian  Isis  and  the 
ox  head.  From  the  uniform  practice  of  Homer,  we 
may  be  sure  he  would,  in  using  any  conceptions 
drawn  from  nature-worship  or  animal-worship,  first 
pass  them  through  the  crucible  of  his  imagination,  to 
bring  them  into  conformity  with  the  anthropomorphic 
conditions  imposed  by  his  Olympian  scheme.  The 
strictly  Achaian  nationality  of  Hera,  national  as  against 
the  foreigner,  and  national  as  distinguished  from 
Athene's  providential  care  of  the  individual,  is  by 
nothing  more  clearly  shown,  than  by  her  entire  dis- 
appearance from  the  action  of  the  Odyssey. 

17.  Lack  of  Special  Attributes. — Except  when 
we  regard  Hera  as  a  kind  of  moon  to  Zeus,  shining 
by  a  portion  of  his  light,  her  mythological  attributes 
are  not  sharply  marked.  She  has  not  a  direct  rela- 
tion to  child-bearing,  though  she  can  control  the  Eili- 
thuiai,  who  have  one,  probably  as  she  controls  other 
natural  agents.  In  equipping  the  daughters  of  Pan- 
dareos  with  gifts,  her  share  was  to  bestow  beauty, 
and  a  quality  called//;/?//^,  by  which,  as  it  is  used  in 
Homer,  I  understand  not  intellectual  excellence  (for  it 
is  assigned  to  the  Telamonian  Aias),  but  good  manners, 
or  breeding ;  a  sense  of  the  becoming.  It  may  excite 
surprise  that  the  gift  of  beautiful  form  should  not  pro- 
ceed from  Aphrodite,  who  is  herself  (//.  ix.  329)  the 
selected  model  of  it.  But  this  deity,  recognised  in 
the  Tioic  legend  of  the  Judgment  of  Paris,  and 
making  way  at  the  Achaian  period  from  the  east,  by 
Cyprus  and  Kuthera,  towards  Greece,  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  yet  recognised  in  the  peninsula  itself. 
In  the  Iliad,  the  circumstances  give  her  a  place  on 
the  side  of  Troy  ;  but  she  is  made  odious  and  con- 
temptible by  her  weakness  and  cowardice,  as  well  as 
by  her  merely  sensual  character.  She  is  a  member  of 
the  Olympian  Court ;  but  one  of  the  last  in  rank  and 
efficacy.  Artemis  the  pure  is  a  donor  to  the  daughters 
of  Pandareos ;  she  gives  them  stature.    But  Aphrodite 


f6  ■     HOMER.     ^  [chap; 

has  only  the  subordinate  oiffice  of  making  application 
to  Zeus  on  the  subject  of  their  marriages. 

18.  Womanhood  in  Hera.  —  The  feminine 
character,  however,  is  strongly  marked,  and  by  no 
means  on  its  higher  side,  in  Hera.  In  the  fourteenth 
Iliad  we  are  shown  its  sensual  aspect;  but  this  is 
thoroughly  subordinated  to  a  political  object  in  the 
interest  of  the  Achaians,  and  she  carries  through  her 
plan  with  all  possible  tact  and  craft.  More  enjoy- 
able is  the  sharpness  of  the  jealous  eye,  with  which, 
in  the  first  Jliad^  she  divines  that  Zeus  had  been 
holding  a  conversation  with  Thetis,  and  sets  vigorously 
to  work  to  worm  it  out  of  him.  She  does  not  quite 
succeed ;  but  she  well  understands  the  art  of  giving 
herself  value  by  making  him  uncomfortable.  Accord- 
ingly, when  he  sends  Iris  with  a  very  menacing  message 
to  recall  her  and  Athene  peremptorily  from  the  Plain, 
he  says  he  will  teach  Glaukopis  (//.  viii.  406)  not  to 
fight  against  her  sire ;  "  but  as  to  Hera,  I  do  not  take 
so  much  account  of  it,  or  put  myself  in  a  passion,  for 
she  is  always  meddling,  whatever  I  may  be  about." 

19.  The  Thetis  of  Homer.  The  character  of 
Thetis  is  as  much  more  graceful  than  Hera,  as  it  is 
less  majestic.  It  is  strongly  maternal  ;  and  she  even 
assumes  a  dark  mourning  garb,  to  share  in  the  grief 
of  Achilles  for  Patroclos.  Yet  it  has  not  lost  the 
archness  of  coquetry  :  and  when  in  the  first  Book 
she  carries  to  Zeus  the  important  petition  on  which 
hangs  the  main  action  of  the  poem,  and  he,  antici- 
pating trouble  from  Hera,  remains  silent,  she,  having 
already  embraced  him  by  the  knees  with  one  arm  and 
touched  him  under  the  chin  with  her  right  hand, 
poutingly  insists  that  he  shall  say  aye  or  nay,  when 
she  knov/s  it  must  be  aye  ;  and  he  has  to  face  a  scold- 
ing from  his  Queen  accordingly. 

20.  Her  Reconciling  Office.— But  the  charm- 
ing picture  of  the  silver-footed  goddess,  ever  fresh  from 
the  sea-bosom  when  her  aid  is  wanted,  is  still  secondary 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY.  77 

to  the  interest  of  a  great  mythologic  drama,  of  which  she 
is  made  the  central  personage.  It  would  appear  that, 
of  all  the  important  figures  of  his  thearchy,  this  of 
Thetis  is  the  one  in  which  Homer  has  least  been  a 
reporter  of  current  traditions,  and  which  he  has  most 
largely  and  freely  used  for  his  bold  constructive 
purposes.  His  office,  it  must  ever  be  remembered, 
was,  like  that  of  the  War  he  sang,  a  nation -making 
office.  The  first  factor  in  the  making  of  a  nation  is 
its  religion  :  and  he  had  to  compound  into  unity  the 
diversified  contributions,  which  had  been,  and  were 
being,  brought  into  the  country  by  the  various  streams 
of  its  population.  The  old  mass,  which  has  been 
called  Pelasgic,  had  seemingly  various  cults,  now 
embalmed  but  buried  in  the  verse  of  Hesiod,  of  which 
the  basis  is  Nature-worship,  and  which  had  personages 
like  Okeanos  and  Kronos  for  their  heads.  If  we  may 
judge  from  the  catalogues  of  names,  each  may  have 
had  dominion  within  a  narrow  range,  and  there  was  no 
conceivable  tie  of  unity  among  them.  But,  even  while 
their  day  lasted,  it  would  appear  as  if  the  figure  of  the 
Pelasgic  Zeus  had  towered  over  all  other  pretenders 
to  supremacy  ;  and  that,  thougli  probably  conceived  as 
an  air-  and  light-god,  he  was  alone  possible  as  a  centre 
of  union,  and  as  a  link  of  connection  with  the  purer 
Hellic  system  that  enshrined  his  name,  as  well  as  with 
the  progressive  imp  jrtations,  proceeding  mainly  from 
the  south  and  cast.  Of  the  newcomers,  the  chief  were 
Poseidon,  Hephaistos,  Hermes,  Aphrodite,  Ares.  None 
of  these  were  so  imbued  with  elemental  character,  as  to 
be  unfit  to  figure  in  his  scheme  of  anthropophuism. 
But  he  had  also  to  deal  with  the  large  and  various 
groups  of  Nature-powers  more  or  less  in  possession, 
buch  as  Okeanos  and  Kronos,  whom  I  have  named, 
the  Earth  and  Sun,  whom  we  know  to  have  been 
worshipped  by  those  names  m  Troy,  the  old  and 
genuine  water-god  Nereus,  the  Rivers,  and  many- 
more,  probably  including  Aidoneus.     With  an  infinite 


78  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

ingenuity,  he  throws  back  all  these  personages  into  sha- 
dow :  Okeanos  is  banished,  but  wiili  respect;  Kronos 
is  penally  buried  in  Tartaros,  which  doubtless  signifies 
an  active  struggle,  and  the  defeat  of  his  worship  ; 
ATdoneus  is  invested  with  a  sovereignty,  but  kept  mute 
in  the  Under-world.  There  also  are  the  River-deities, 
to  one  of  whom  the  spirit  of  Patroclos  is  accordingly 
charged  with  a  message  by  Achilles. 

21.  Her  Place  as  Daughter  of  Nereus. — 
So  artful  is  the  poet's  method,  that  he  never  names 
Nereus,  the  old-elemental  god  of  water  (still  called 
Nero  by  the  Greek  population).  He  presents  this 
deity  as  "the  aged  father  in  the  deep,"'  and  signifies 
his  personal  appellation  only  by  the  patronymic 
Nereides,  used  for  Thetis  and  her  sisters.  Now 
let  us  see  how  he  has  employed  Thetis  as  a  link 
of  connection  between  the  Pelasgic  and  Hellenic 
systems.  As  an  elemental  sea-goddess,  she  is  pro- 
perly Pelasgic,  and  her  dwelling  is  in  the  unfathomed 
depth.  But  he  produces  her  as  married  to  Peleus, 
and  as  the  mother  of  Achilles,  the  flower  and  type, 
beyond  any  other  chieftain,  of  the  purest  Hellenism. 
This  is  not  all.  He  produces  with  her,  in  the  eighteenth 
Iliad,  a  train  of  thirty-three  sisters  ;  and  some  trans- 
lators have  been  puzzled  to  know  why  he  gives  us  this 
long  list  of  their  names,  for  they  say  nothing  and  do 
nothmg,  but  simply  emerge  as  companions  to  Thetis, 
and  then  return  to  the  sea-palace  in  the  shining  deep, 
while  she  goes  to  Olumpos  to  obtain  arms  for  Achilles. 
Now,  nothing  is  so  certain  as  that  Homer  has  not  pro- 
duced this  long  train  of  damsels  without  a  purpose. 
What  IS  it?  Notice  first  that  the  names  of  his  deities 
are  ordinarily  not  of  Greek  derivation.  But  nearly  the 
whole  of  the  names  of  these  "  ladies,"  as  Lord 
Derby  calls  them,  are  of  the  purest  Hellenic  origin, 
and  one  of  them  is  actually  a  Doris,  akin  to  the  name 
of  an  already  known  Hellenic  tribe.  It  seems  then 
that  his  aim  is,   through   them,  to  associate  the  old 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY.  79 

sea-god,  and  the  Pelasgian  fore-time,  with  his  newly- 
sprung  Achaian  and  Olympian  system. 

22.  Zeus  and  the  Great  (Jlympian  Feud. — 
But  the  Pelasgic  Zeus  —  and  such  is  the  epithet 
solemnly  given  him  by  the  great  national  hero — 
had  other  rivals  to  fear,  more  lormidable  than  these 
quiet  and  but  half-animate  members  of  the  old 
Nature-system.  Apollo,  indeed,  was  his  sure  and 
fast  friend.  But,  in  shedding  off  the  Pelasgian  and 
assuming  the  Hellenic  type,  he  seemingly  had  to  con- 
front other  deities,  with  powerful  traditions  to  support 
their  worships ;  the  great  Athene,  Hera  with  one 
hand  given  seemingly  to  the  old  local  Gaia,  and  the 
other  to  the  I  sis  from  Egypt,  who  had  undoubted 
roots  in  the  country ;  most  of  all  Poseidon,  of  whom 
it  is  clear  that  he  came  into  Greece  with  ail  those 
called  Phoenicians,  that  is  the  foreigners,  for  his  wor- 
shippers, and  from  countries  over  which  he  had  been 
supreme.  Of  this  fact  1  will  now  m.ention  but  one 
among  the  many  Homeric  traces.  It  is  this  :  that 
in  the  Odyssey  he  is  apparently  revealed  to  us  as 
paramount  in  the  southern  region  of  the  world,  as 
well  as  over  the  western  and  northern  sea.  He  even 
presides  in  the  Divine  Assembly;  and  the  hall  in 
which  it  meets,  on  this  occasion,  and  on  this  alone 
{Od.  viii.  321),  is  called  the  "  copper-built  hall," 
but  without  the  addition  that  it  is  the  hall  "of 
Zeus." 

23.  Interposition  of  Thetis. — There  appears, 
then,  to  have  been,  consequent  on  the  Phoenician 
and  Hellic  immigrations,  a  conflict  between  the 
worships  of  the  new  and  the  old  inhabitants,  which 
was  requisite  to  clear  the  grourd  for  the  forma- 
tion of  the  Olympian  scheme.  Such  conflicts  are 
indicated,  m  particular  cases,  as  disputes  between 
particular  deities  for  the  possession  of  particular 
towns  :  as  Poseidon  and  Athene  at  Athens,  Poseidon 
and  Apollo  at  Corinth.    In  such  merely  local  conflicts, 

6* 


8o  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

Zeus  does  not  appear.  But  this  was  on  a  larger  scale  ; 
a  pervading  change  in  the  headship  of  the  territorial 
religion.  This  great  transition  it  appears  to  be,  which 
the  poet  has  figured  to  us  in  the  first  Iliad,  under  the 
form  of  an  Olympian  legend.  It  runs  to  the  effect 
that  Athene,  with  Hera  and  Poseidon,  conspired  to 
put  Zeus  in  chains.  They  were  about  to  effect  their 
purpose,  when  Thetis  summoned  the  great  Aigaion 
with  the  hundred  hands,  child  of  Poseidon,  but 
mightier  than  his  sire.  He  came  to  Olumpos,  and 
placed  himself,  in  full  self-confidence,  by  the  side  of 
Zeus ;  whereupon  they  desisted  from  their  purpose. 
This  seems  to  indicate  a  compromise,  under  which 
the  new  anthropomorphic  ideas  and  the  Hellic  tradi- 
tions became  the  ruling  factors  of  the  religion,  but  the 
worships  come  from  abroad  were  fully  recognised,  and 
the  old  Nature-worship,  perhaps  symbolised  by  Aigaion, 
was  found  too  strong  to  be  cast  out,  and  continued 
locally  as  a  kind  of  Pagan  or  village  cult,  while  it  is  of 
Iitde  note  in  the  literature  and  educated  thought  of  the 
country.  Of  all  this  the  Thetis  of  Homer  is  the  clever 
and  appropriate  agent.  In  a  particular  case,  she  had 
saved  Hephaistos  in  his  youth  from  bemg  hidden,  or 
made  away  with ;  and,  conjointly  with  a  daughter  of 
Okeanos,  she  had  nursed  and  reared  him  down  in  the 
sea  bosom,  where  the  lame  but  active  child,  amidst 
the  music  of  the  murmuring  waters,  produced  the  first- 
fruits  of  his  art.  She  is  in  truth  the  great  mediating 
goddess  of  the  Iliad ;  by  whom,  both  in  her  wifely  and 
in  her  divine  capacity,  the  old  Pelasgian  agencies  are 
made  to  serve  the  purposes  of  religious  peace,  and 
both  the  races  and  the  worships  are  brought  into 
reconciliation.  It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  when 
she  is  sent  tor  to  the  Olympian  Court  m  the  twenty- 
fourih  Iliad,  although  she  is  no  member  of  it,  and 
is  therefore  of  a  rank  (xx.  io6)  inferior  to  that  of 
Aphrodite,  she  is  treated  with  an  immense  respect, 
for  she  sits  down  by  Zeus,  Athene  yielding  the  place. 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY.  8i 

In  all  this  we  see  the  wonderful  intertwining  of  the 
celestial  and  terrestrial  spheres  in  the  poems,  and  their 
truly  historic  aims. 

24.  The  Iris  of  Homer. — While  this  noteworthy 
Thetis  is  by  extraction  a  Nature-power,  localised  in 
the  country,  the  Iris  of  Homer  is,  like  her,  confined 
to  the  Iliad,  and  has  no  place  in  the  Odyssey,  though 
he  does  not  present  her  as  a  Nature-power  at  all,  and 
she  has  no  local  relations  whatever.  Her  tie  to  the 
Iliad  is  ethnical.  She  has  not  a  world-wide  office,  like 
Zeus,  Apollo,  or  Athene.  On  her,  as  on  Thetis,  the 
imagination  of  the  poet  has  worked  powerfully  and 
freely,  but  in  a  foiTn  widely  different.  Thetis  avowedly 
retains  her  lineage  as  daughter  of  the  greybeard  of  the 
sea.  But  whatever  relation  Iris  has  to  the  rainbow 
is  carefully  and  jealously  concealed.  The  names, 
indeed,  are  identical.  But  ins  the  rainbow  always 
has,  as  might  be  expected,  epithets  of  colour;  Iris 
the  goddess  never.  And  on  one  occasion,  when  she 
carries  a  message  to  the  Winds,  at  their  banquet  held 
m  the  house  of  Zephuros  as  their  primate,  and  they 
welcom.e  her  with  an  eagerness,  which  may  be  due 
to  traditional  relationship  as  well  as  to  gallantry,  she 
declines  to  sit  down  with  them,  and  pleads  want  of 
time.  But  the  cause  of  her  haste  is  notable.  It  is 
that  she  mviy  go  to  share  with  the  other  gods  a  banquet, 
which  was  entirely  for  the  Olympian  Court,  on  the  sacri- 
fices of  the  Aithiopes  by  the  Ocean-shore.  Thus  she 
marks  her  own  position  as  a  goddess  not  of  the 
Nature-family,  but  of  the  purely  Olympian  order. 

But  how  did  Iris  rise  so  high  ?  Certainly  not  by  her 
having  a  root  in  a  natural  phenom.enon.  Sr.e  is,  on 
the  contrary,  a  genuine  anthropomorphic  conception, 
drawn  with  infinite  grace  and  tenderness,  and  en- 
dowed with  singular  sense  and  tact  in  the  execution 
of  her  office  as  envoy ;  so  that,  when  she  has  to  carry 
to  Poseidon  a  message  of  rebuke  and  prohibition, 
he  is  so  pleased  with  her  manner  of  doing  it  that  he 


82  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

says  (xv.  207),  "Well  is  it,  when  a  messenger  knows 
his  business."  Everywhere  she  is  contrasted  with  the 
Nature-powers.  Unlike  them,  she  holds  her  place  in 
the  literature  of  the  country ;  and,  unlike  them  again, 
she  has  no  place  in  its  local  worships.  Neither  a 
temple  nor  a  statue  of  her  is  mentioned  by  Pausanias. 
25.  Apparent  Key  to  the  Conception. — Her 
function  is  simply  that  of  a  messenger ;  but,  as  mes- 
senger when  writing  was  not  in  use,  she  is  also  envoy 
and  agent.  She  is  such  at  the  bidding  of  Zeus  onl\', 
or  of  Hera  in  her  derivative  possession  of  some  of  his 
prerogatives.  She  officiates  between  god  and  god,  or 
between  god  and  man.  She  does  not  act  like  Hermes 
for  the  Olympian  Court,  but  for  the  supreme  god 
individually.  The  ground  idea  of  her  character  as 
messsenger  is  proved  by  this  ;  that  the  burly  beggar 
Antaios  of  the  Odyssey,  because  he  goes  from  place  to 
place,  and  like  her,  acts  as  a  go-between,  is  called 
Iros. 
'  In  the  book  of  Genesis  (ix.  11-17)  the  rainbow  is 
declared  to  be  from  that  time  forward  a  messenger 
between  God  and  man,  for  it  is  to  declare  to  man 
the  will  of  the  Almighty  with  regard  to  the  fixed 
order  of  the  seasons.  If  this  idea  had  been  tradi- 
tionally conveyed  from  the  original  source  to  the 
Achaian  period  and  region,  we  can  at  once  under- 
stand how  Homer  found  the  tradition,  though  origi- 
nally founded  on  a  natural  phenomenon,  admirably 
suited  for  that  ethereal  creation,  which  he  has  pre- 
sented to  us  in  the  buoyant  and  brilliant  form  of 
his  Iris.  The  rainbow,  as  a  natural  power,  was  in  no 
proper  sense  a  messenger,  so  that  he  did  not  learn  his 
lesson  from  the  old  Pelasgian  cult;  there  is  strong 
evidence  that  it  did  not  come  from  the  bright  dry 
countries  of  the  southern  east,  in  the  exclusion  of  Iris 
from  the  Outer  world  of  the  Odyssey.  I^ut  every  fea- 
ture of  her  character  and  position  tends  to  ally  her 
with  what  I  have  termed  the  Heliic  tradition* 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY.  83 

26.  Her  Properties  as  Messenger  -  God- 
dess.— Although  she  is  but  a  sketch,  she  is  one  of 
tliose  sketches,  in  which  the  touch  of  the  incom- 
parable master  is  as  clearly  seen  as  in  any  work  of 
tiie  most  complete  development.  Only  the  hand, 
that  drew  Nausicaa  on  earth,  could  have  drawn  Iris 
in  the  skies.  She  seems  lighter  than  the  air  itself 
upon  her  golden  wings,  and  the  poet  always  employs 
the  full  resources  of  pure  dactylic  verse  to  signify  the 
elastic  bound,  with  which  she  starts  upon  her  missions. 
But  with  all  her  lightness,  she  plunges  ''like  lead" 
through  the  waters  of  the  deep,  because  her  swiftness  is 
even  more  essential  to  h^r  even  than  her  lightness.  In 
full  keeping  with  these,  so  to  speak,  physical  qualities, 
is  her  ready,  nimble  mind,  her  incessant  labour  for 
some  purpose  of  good,  not  of  ill,  and  the  total  absence 
of  every  dark  or  gross  or  malicious  feature  from  the 
really  sweet  delineation;  although,  when  Zeus  has 
intimated  that  he  rather  wishes  his  inhibition  to 
Pallas  to  be  rough,  she,  as  his  faithful  organ,  shows 
that  she  too  keeps  a  tongue  in  her  head. 

27.  Glance  round  the  Olympian  Court. — I 
have  thought  it  better  to  present  with  some  fulness  these 
five  remarkable  specimens  of  the  Homeric  thearchy, 
than  to  dwell  more  briefly  and  with  less  freedom  upon 
each  of  his  Olympian  and  preternatural  personages  ;  in 
the  hope  of  thus  showing  something  of  the  poet  him- 
self, in  a  sphere  where  he  is  hardly  less  wonderful  or 
less  interesting,  than  in  his  dealing  with  human  agents 
and  affairs.  In  handling  these  five,  I  have  touched 
by  the  way  on  the  offices  of  Apollo,  Hephaistos, 
Hermes,  Aphrodite,  and  even  Poseidon  ;  1  will  refer 
more  slightly  still  to  others. 

The  Homeric  sketch  of  Artemis  is  very  beautiful 
and  pure,  but  slight :  with  the  moon  she  has  no  asso- 
ciation whatever ;  it  is  difficult  to  trace  her  origin ; 
her  share  in  the  action  is  insignificant ;  she  is  sorely 
belaboured,  in  the  Theomachy,  by  the  strong  arm  of 


84  HOMER,  [CHAP, 

Hera  ;  but  she  shares  many  offices  and  prerogatives  of 
Apollo,  and  seems  to  reflect  him  weakly,  as  Hera 
reriected  Zeus.  The  Sun  is  powerful  in  the  East,  but 
is  wholly  exotic,  so  that  the  crew  of  Odusscus  en- 
deavour to  propitiate  him  by  promising  to  build  for  him 
a  temple  in  Ithaca,  that  is,  to  introduce  his  worship 
into  the  island.  Aidoneus  exactly  fulfils  a  definition 
of  M.  Thiers  ;  he  reigns,  but  does  not  govern,  below  ; 
where  his  spouse,  Persephone,  the  awful,  is  the  actual 
ruler.  She  has  no  stated  relation  to  Demeter,  and  the 
origin  of  Homer's  conception  is  not  easily  to  be  traced. 
The  black  poplar  {aigeiros)  is  evidently  sacred  to  one 
or  both,  and  the  connection  of  this  tree  with  death  and 
grief  may  be  traced  in  the  later  mythology;  while  it 
probably  has  its  root,  like  most  of  the  arrangements  of 
the  Homeric  Under-world,  in  Egyptian  tradition.  Of 
this,  however,  it  is  a  pale  retiection,  for  the  future  life 
did  not  occupy  in  the  Achaian  mmd  a  place  of  that  vast 
relative  importance,  which  it  had  obtained  in  Egypt. 
Leto  is  a  personage  chiefly  significant  in  her  relation 
to  Apollo.  She  has  no  mythological  attribute.  She 
has  been  explained  as  the  darkness,  out  of  whose 
womb  the  light  arises.  This  will  assort  with  a 
motherhood  of  the  Sun,  when  such  a  tradition  can  be 
discovered;  but  it  has  no  relation  at  all  to  the  Homeric 
Apollo  of  the  Olympian  system.  The  poet  always 
pays  her  an  extraordinary  veneration,  for  which  there  is 
no  basis  in  legend ;  but  it  is  at  once  explained,  if  the 
Apollo  of  the  poems  is  really  founded  on  the  Hebrew 
tradition,  that  there  should  be  a  woman,  whose  Seed 
was  to  redeem  the  world.  Ares  is  especially  the 
Thracian  god.  He  wavers  before  taking  his  part  in 
the  Iliad.  It  thereby  appears  that  he  must  have 
had  sway  in  a  country,  which  was  divided  in  sentiment 
between  Greek  and  Trojan.  There  is  in  him  a 
strong  animal  element,  and  no  feature  of  high 
interest.  We  have  Hebe  the  cup-bearer ;  and  Themis 
the   summoner  of   assemblies,   whose  character  has 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY.  85 

a  relation  to  political  society.  Dione  dwells  in 
Olumpos  as  a  wife  of  Zeus,  and  there  is  some  slight 
reason  for  connecting  her  with  him  in  his  Pelasgic 
character  as  the  Zeus  of  Dodona.  Dionusos,  after- 
wards so  famous,  has  in  Homer  hardly  made  his  way 
to  deity ;  certainly  he  has  not  reached  the  Olympian 
Court. 

28.  Notice  of  Poseidon.— Of  all  the  divinities, 
from  whose  characters  the  higher  elements  are  absent, 
Poseidon  is  the  most  remarkable.  Lustful,  vengeful, 
headstrong,  self-assertive,  yet  ever  shrewd,  he  is  not 
under  complete  control  even  from  Zeus  himself,  and 
bears  plain  traces  of  having  enjoyed  elsewhere  that 
supremacy,  the  full  retention  of  which  by  him  was  in- 
compatible with  the  Olympian  scheme.  He  does  not 
scruple  to  claim,  though  not  in  Zeus's  presence,  equality 
with  Zeus :  and  only  retires  from  the  field  of  battle 
under  his  injunction,  when  Iris  reminded  him  of  the 
right  of  the  senior  brother,  under  that  Jaw  of  family 
order,  which  even  he  did  not  dare  to  disallow.  He 
has  a  very  great  importance  in  the  poems,  as  a  key  to 
their  ethnology ;  and  we  are  enabled  to  trace  his  con- 
nection with  the  south  in  a  great  degree  through  his 
relation  to  the  horse,  over  which  he  is,  beyond  all 
others,  the  presiding  deity. 

29.  Approximate  Number  of  the  Olympian 
Court. — When  Thetis  visits  Hephaistos  in  his  Olym- 
pian workshop,  she  finds  him  busied  in  preparing 
twenty  self-moving  chairs  for  the  meetings  of  the  gods. 
It  seems  probable  that  Homer  intended,  roughly 
at  least,  to  indicate  this  as  the  number  of  his  higher 
gods,  who  composed  the  Court ;  apart  from  the  mob 
(so  to  speak)  of  Nature-powers  and  others,  who  were 
only  summoned  to  the  great  assemblies  for  special 
occasions.  Eighteen  have  been  already  indicated. 
Demeter,  and  Paieon,  the  healer,  may  possibly  fill 
up  the  number.  The  suggestion  of  that  number  he 
may  have  derived  from  Egypt,  where  the  gods  were 


86  HOMER,  [CHAP. 

arranged  in  three  orders,  with  eight  in  the  first,  and 
twelve  in  the  second  ;  while  the  third  was  made  up  of 
a  rather  promiscuous  crowd. 

30.  The  Orders  of  Supernatural  Beings  in 
Homer. — The  Olympian  Court  is  the  masterpiece  of 
the  whole  theurgy  of  Homer.  But  the  classes  of 
supernatural  beings  are  with  him  very  many,  and  we 
find  at  certain  points  imagination  and  tradition,  inven- 
tion and  history,  competing  for  the  ground.  We  may 
consider  as  purely  traditional  in  Homer,  the  greater 
and  the  smaller  Nature-powers ;  both  those  belonging 
to  ancient  deposed  dynasties,  and  those  which  had 
*' a  local  habitation  and  a  name,"  still  acknowledged  in 
the  land.  Then  there  is  the  minor  mythology  of  the 
Outer  or  Phoenician  zone :  to  which  belong  Atlas, 
Kalupso,  Kirke,  Proteus,  Leukothoe,  and  others. 
Next,  we  see  darkly  looming  below  ground,  the  rebel- 
lious powers  :  the  giants,  the  Titans,  and  some  more  ; 
punished  beyond  the  few  human  criminals  of  Hades, 
but  yet  supernatural  beings,  not  to  be  confounded  with 
them.  Then  we  have  men  on  the  road  to  deification  : 
such  as  He:akles,  Castor,  Poludeukes  :  such  perhaps 
is  Dionusos.  We  have  also  the  creatures  of  pure  imagi- 
nation, such  as  Strife,  Fear,  Panic,  Rumour.  Others 
again,  like  Prayer,  with  limping  feet,  and  the  Graces, 
and  Sleep  and  Dream,  that  hang  on  the  border  land  be- 
tween embodied  and  (so  to  speak)  disembodied  inven- 
tion. There  remains  the  very  grand  conception  of  the 
Ministers  of  doom.  Ate,  the  seducer,  is  ever  bewil- 
dering men  into  offences,  which,  when  they  grow  into 
habit,  and  harden  into  defiance,  become  atastliaUai. 
This  notewordiy  Homeric  word  conveys  very  powerfully 
what  comes  near  the  Christian  idea  of  sin;  and  I  believe 
that  it  has  no  corresponding  representative  in  the  lan- 
guage of  classical  Greece.  Destiny,  expressed  by  various 
words,  partakes  of  the  nature  both  of  a  mere  force, 
and  of  a  moral  law.  The  former  is  principally  ex- 
pressed by  Moira^  the  second  by  Aisa.     The  silent 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY.  87 

and  strong  operation  of  this  dumb  agent,  against,  and 
sometimes  over,  both  gods  and  men,  is  not  so  crudely 
set  forth  in  Homer  as  in  some  later  systems.  It  never 
appears  as  the  single  over-ruhng  force  :  and  the  two 
great  ideas  of  the  divine  will,  and  of  the  Ought,  or 
duty,  are  the  principal  factors  in  the  government 
of  our  human  world  from  above  or  from  without. 
Against  fate  either  god  or  man  may  struggle ;  nay,  it 
is  sometimes  intimated,  as  to  a  hero,  that  he  is  on  the 
point  of  overcoming  it.  Further,  we  have  the  Har- 
puiai,  or  ravishers,  who  may  be  considered  as  a  kind 
of  executioners,  but  not  judges,  of  Doom.  They  only 
once  appear,  carrying  off  the  daughter  of  Pandareos, 
probably  on  account  of  some  ancestral  sin.  The  really 
grand  figures  in  this  dejjartment  of  the  Homeric 
supernaturalism  are  the  Ermues,  afterwards  called  the 
Furies  in  a  degenerated  tradition,  but  more  truly  tlie 
vindicatresses  of  nature  and  the  moral  order.  In 
some  cases,  the  Ermues  appear  to  act  penally,  but 
commonly  their  office  is  to  preserve  or  to  repair.  The 
thought  of  the  Erinues  causes  Poseidon  to  accept  the 
monition  of  Zeus  as  his  elder  brother.  They  arrest 
the  speaking  of  the  horse  Xanthos,  who  for  the 
moment  had  invaded  the  province  of  "  articulating 
men."  If  Telemachos  dismisses  his  mother  from  his 
home,  her  Erinues  will  come  upon  him.  The  dis- 
guised Odusseus  invokes,  against  the  Suitor  Antinoos, 
the  gods  and  Erinues  of  the  poor.  When  Ares  is  laid 
prostrate  in  the  Theomachy,  Athene  tells  him  it  is 
due  to  the  Erinues  of  his  mother,  from  whose  party 
he  had  deserted.  Later  times  understood  them  as 
*' The  Furies"^  but  we  might  more  pioperly  render 
them  "The  Sanctions. "  In  one  obscure  instance  the 
Erinues  seem  to  be  mentioned  {Od.  xv.  232-4)  as 
suggesting  a  grave  folly  :  but  this,  unless  there  is  an 
explanation  in  some  circumstances  of  the  case  un- 
known to  us,  is  certainly  out  of  keeping  with  their 
general  action  in  Homer. 


88  HOMER,  [CHAP. . 

31.    The    Homeric   Theanthropism. — The 

Olympian  system  of  Homer  has  for  its  most  marked 
characteristic  the  combination  of  the  divine  idea  with 
the  essential  conditions  of  our  humanity.  Every 
divine  person  is  conceived  of  as  vested  in  a  human 
figure  ;  and  the  head,  hands,  feet,  or  chin  of  a  deity 
are  the  expression  of  an  ingenuous  literalism.  These 
bodies  are  indefinitely  glorious,  but  still  human.  Being 
human,  they  afforded  a  proper  subject  for  Greek  art,  a 
stepping-stone  upwards ;  being  indefinitely  glorious, 
they  invited  and  compelled  the  artist  to  labour  e\er 
more  and  more  for  "the  highest";  for  an  unseen 
perfection ;  and  thus  supplied  him  with  the  talisman 
of  his  unrivalled  excellence.  The  whole  apparatus  of 
the  mmd,  too,  was  laid  out  on  the  human  model ;  but 
the  human  construction  was  in  the  higher  deities 
attached  not  as  a  limitation  of  the  divine  idea,  only 
as  Its  vehicle.  As  to  the  appetitive  i^art  of  humanity, 
wherein  lies,  as  in  the  weak  part  of  a  fortification,  the 
easiest  access  of  the  foe,  it  adheres  to  the  Olympian 
gods  in  infinite  diversity  of  degree.  In  Athene  and 
Apollo,  we  have  no  palpable  trace  of  it.  In  Zeus,  it 
lodges  even  to  redundance,  side  by  side  with  genuine 
affections,  such  as  these  which  make  him  weep  for 
Sarpedon  ;  with  administrative  responsibilities  which 
he  keenly  feels  ;  and,  above  all,  with  that  rather  more 
abstract  capacity,  in  which  he  represents  the  higher 
motive  power  of  theism.  In  Ares,  Aphrodite,  and 
Poseidon,  this  tyranny  of  lower  elements  over  higher 
is  almost  wholly  unchecked.  The  motherly  sentiment 
for  the  w^ounded  Aineias  in  Aphrodite,  though  no 
higher  than  the  instinct  of  a  bird,  almost  surprises  us 
as  the  solitary  manifestation  of  a  redeeming  quality. 
It  is  not  difticult  to  see  how  this  refined  association 
of  the  divine  with  the  human  nature  may  have  sup- 
plied a  preparatory  school,  in  which  the  Greek  mind 
was  trained  for  the  reception,  "in  the  fulness  of  time," 
of  the  Christian  dogma. 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY.  89 

32.  The  Theanthropic  Family. — This  intro- 
duction of  human  forms  into  divine  life  was  not  con- 
fined to  the  representations  of  individual  deity.  As 
on  earth  men  are  constituted  in  the  double  association 
of  the  Family  and  the  State,  so  it  is  in  Olumpos.  As 
regards  the  family,  Homer  had  the  first  elements  of  it 
ready  to  his  hand  in  the  traditions,  both  foreign  and 
aboriginal,  which  distributed  deity  according  to  sex 
and  generation.  Nothing  could  better  answer  the 
purpose  of  the  poet.  But  he  wanted  to  give  a  greater 
power  and  scope  to  the  domestic  principle  for  his 
larger  theanthropic  purpose  :  he  required  a  large  family, 
not  merely  an  Osiris  and  an  Isis,  with  Horos  for 
their  son.  He  had  also  to  deal  with  the  case  of  other 
deities,  like  Poseidon  or  Aidoneus,  with  their  re- 
spective claims  to  supremacy.  Of  this  business  he 
acquits  himself  by  going  back  to  a  common  sire  in 
the  deposed  and  penally  engulphed  Kronos,  and  by 
dividing  among  the  three  Brothers  the  air,  sea,  and 
Under-world,  with  earth  common  to  them  all.  In  this 
manner  he  also  finds  scope  for  the  Trinitarian  idea, 
which  had  come  down  to  him,  as  it  had  also  appeared 
elsewhere  in  other  forms  :  yet  of  which  it  may  be 
observed,  that  we  do  not  find  it  in  the  old  Pelasgic 
thearchies,  nor  apparently  in  those  eastern  and 
southern  systems,  which  had  made  contributions  to  the 
Achaian  mythology.  But  it  is  remarkable  that,  in  the 
construction  of  the  Olympian  fiimily,  the  moral  standard 
has  to  descend  much  below  that  of  the  Greek  part  of 
the  world  it  ruled.  No  Greek  ideas  are  more  firmly 
stamped  upon  the  mind  of  Homer  than  the  practice 
of  monogamy,  and  the  abhorrence  of  incest :  but 
Hera  is  the  sister  of  Zeus,  her  husband,  and  in  her 
conjugal  capacity  she  is  little  better  than,  like  Hecabe, 
the  queen  of  a  harem.  And  so  live  his  gods,  in  per- 
petual feasting,  with  frequent  wrangles;  in  splendid 
palaces,  and  with  the  refined  accompaniment  of  the 
lyre  and  song. 


90  HOMER.  [chap. 

33.  The  Polity,  or  State. — As  in  the  Family, 
so  the  divine  order  was  likewise  organised  after  the 
manner  of  a  State.  It  was  something  of  a  free  state  ; 
for  all  subjects  were  debated,  remonstrance  was 
allowed,  there  was  a  public  opinion,  and  resolutions 
were  taken  in  the  name  of  all.  The  Theomachy  was  in 
the  nature  of  a  civil  war.  The  Olympian  State  was  for 
the  previously  disorganised  and  conflicting  worship 
(if  the  comparison  be  not  too  far-fetched,)  something 
like  what  the  Treaty  of  Westphalia  was  for  Central 
Europe.  In  that  State  there  was  the  King,  who 
ordinarily  sat  with  his  Boule,  the  council,  or  smaller 
assembly,  and  a  greater  or  universal  one  for  special 
occasions ;  just  as  on  earth  below  we  have  Aga- 
memnon, then  the  Kings  around  him,  these  together 
being  the  ordinary  instrument  of  government,  while 
the  assembly  of  the  army,  or  people,  is  in  reserve  for 
cases  of  breadth  and  emergency. 

34.  Exclusion  of  Grosser  Elements. — This 
anthropomorphic,  or,  as  I  should  prefer  to  call  it, 
theanthropic,  polity  already  contained  elements  of 
gross  corruption,  which  grew  with  a  pestilent  fertility 
in  later  times  ;  until  at  length  the  severe  judgment  of 
the  Apostle,  though  he  recognises  m  the  mythology 
(Acts  xvii.  28)  a  true  theistic  element,  yet  treats  it  as 
inviting  men  to  the  worship  of  demons  (i  Cor.  x. 
20,  21).  But  it  was,  in  itself,  a  marvellous  formation  ; 
and  so  far  (we  can  hardly  tell  with  exactness  how  far) 
as  it  is  due  to  the  genius  of  a  man,  it  is  a  stroke 
of  genius  unsurpassed.  For  let  us  consider  in  the 
first  place  that  it  rather  annexed  humanity  to  deity, 
than,  in  its  first  inception,  submitted  deity  to 
humanity.  In  the  next  place,  to  clear  the  ground  for 
the  gorgeous  edifice,  it  thrust  unsparingly  away  the 
dark  and  cruel  systems  of  the  old  Nature-worship, 
the  debasing  cuil  of  animals,  and  the  filth  and  vileness 
of  those  bestial  lusts,  of  which  we  have  the  deplor- 
able record  in  the  Old  Testament,  as  to  those  very 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY.  91 

countries  from  which  Greece  derived  the  arts  of  life. 
It  is  therefore  almost  certain  that  nascent  Hellenism 
must  have  been  subjected  to  the  temptation  ;  nay,  that 
this  was  presented  (as  it  were)  with  authority  by  its 
social  instructors,  and  yet  that  it  manfully  spurned 
and  drove  back  the  foul  invasion.  Its  offerings  to 
its  gods  were  in  singular  accordance  with  those  which 
the  patriarchs  of  the  East  had  practised,  and  which 
Moses  prescribed  on  Divine  authority.  But  we 
look  in  vain,  in  the  Homeric  system,  for  a  Jephtha's 
daughter  :  the  terrible  abuse  of  human  sacrifice  to  the 
gods  is  entirely  foreign  to  the  Olympian  scheme, 
and  the  offering  of  Iphigeneia  is  either  an  in- 
vention of  later  date,  or  it  is  a  tradition  which  the 
mind  and  feeling  of  Greece  in  the  heroic  time,  as 
expressed  by  Homer,  did  not  consent  to  accept.  How 
much,  then,  of  what  was  disparaging  to  the  in- 
tellectual dignity  or  debasing  to  the  moral  sense,  of 
man  was  put  away  by  the  maker  or  makers  of  the 
Olympian  system  I 

35.  Its  Centrality  and  Durability. — Not  that 
that  system  expressed  the  religion  of  a  country,  as  it 
has  been  expressed  in  Ghristian  times  by  the  Christian 
Creed.  It  was  a  central,  not  a  local  religion  :  for 
many  persons,  in  many  of  its  parts,  from  the  first,  it 
was  conventional.  It  would  appear  that  a  great  variety 
of  local  worships,  of  this  deity  or  that,  prevailed 
throughout  the  land.  But  the  Olympian  was  the 
intellectual  form  which  acted  upon  the  thought  of 
Greece,  and  which  determined  its  literature  and  art, 
so  far  as  these  were  product  of  religion.  It  lost  pro- 
gressively, and  perhaps  rapidly,  its  moral  hold;  it  had 
the  aid  neither  of  a  wealthy  or  influential  priesthood, 
nor  of  sacred  books ;  it  was  the  most  purely  literary 
religion  that  ever  existed ;  but,  resting  on  this  narrow 
basis,  and  possessed  of  no  external  supports,  it  occu- 
pied the  ground  of  the  most  civilised  countries  of  the 
world  without  a  rival  for  near  1500  years,  and  did  not 


9^  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

finally  give  way,  except  after  a  stout  resistance,  to  the 
victorious  energy  of  the  Gospel. 

36.  Its  iithnographical  Relations.— Of  the 
morality  which,  though  it  hardly  sprang  from,  yet 
at  least  subsisted  under  this  religion,  I  shall  speak 
presently.  Its  ethnographical  relations  seem  to  be 
as  follows  : — 

(i.)  The  Nature-powers  in  general  are  to  be  con- 
sidered as  Pelasgian  or  indigenous.  So  may  Aidoneus, 
Demeter,  perhaps  Persephone,  and  even  Hera,  who, 
however,  undergoes  a  very  complete  transfiguration 
to  fit  her  for  her  great  position  in  the  new  thearchy. 

(2.)  From  Phoenicia,  Syria,  Egypt,  Libya  are  im- 
ported Poseidon,  Hephaistos,   Hermes,  Aphrodite. 

(3.)  In  Zeas  we  have  a  factor  representing  the 
supreme  theistic  element  of  all  tiie  religions,  which 
contributed  to  make  up  the  system  ;  and,  as  the  Zeus 
of  the  Helloi,  he  appears  to  be  in  a  particular  degree 
a  representative  of  an  old  monotheism  which  merges 
into  supremacy  in  a  polytheistic  system 

(4.)  In  Athene  and  Apollo,  and  in  their  degrees  in 
Leto,  Iris,  and  perhaps  others,  we  have  clear  indi- 
cations of  an  order  of  traditions  which,  like  the 
monotheistic  element  in  the  Zeus  of  the  Helloi,  had 
run  through  cleaner  channels  than  those  either  of  the 
Pelasgian  Nature-cult,  or  of  the  licentious  East.  Some 
slight  positive,  and  some  very  strong  negative  indica- 
tions point  to  the  Helloi  of  the  poems  as  the  probable 
vehicle  of  these  traditions :  while  their  notes  of  kin 
to  the  written  records  and  oral  reports  of  the 
Hebrews  appear  to  be  as  conspicuous,  as  is  the 
want  of  anything  which  could  associate  them  with 
another  source.  At  the  same  time  there  is  no  reason 
to  doubt  that  figures  more  or  less  corresponding  to 
Homer's  Apollo"  and  Athene  were  found  in  foreign 
systems,  though  we  are  unable,  from  want  of  records, 
to  know  whether  they  bore  upon  them  any  similar 
marks  of  a  pure  and  lofty  origin. 


VI.]  MYTHOLOGY,  93 

37.  Sacrifice  and  Priesthood. — The  poems 
appear  to  indicate,  that  sacrifices  performed  in  a 
manner  substantially  accordant  with  that  of  the 
Hebrews,  prevailed  not  only  in  the  Achaian  world, 
bat  among  contemporary  nauons.  As  a  rule,  what- 
ever was  eaten  was  also  sacrificed ;  so  that  to 
slaughter  cattle  for  food  was  described  by  the  word 
{hiereuein)^  which  also  signified  "  to  sacrifice."  The 
same  principle  is  applied  to  drink  as  to  food,  by  the 
institute  of  libation :  and  this  is  so  established,  that 
when  the  ship's  company  of  Odusseus  had  not  wine 
in  Thrinakie  to  complete  the  rite,  they  made  libation 
with  water.  But,  when  we  come  to  the  question  of 
the  person  ministering,  we  strike  upon  a  remarkable 
ethnical  difference.  Priesthood  was  plainly  a  Trojan, 
and  apparently  a  Pelasgic,  institution.  But  it  appears 
not  to  have  been  Achaian  or  Hellic.  Not  only  is 
there  no  priest  with  the  Greek  army  in  Troas,  but 
there  is  no  priest  in  Ithaca,  where  the  whole  social 
life  of  the  race  is  so  distinctly  laid  open  to  us.  The 
priest  is  not  named  in  the  list  of  professions.  And 
the  Helloi  of  Dodonaian  Zeus  are  not  his  priests,  but 
his  prophets  or  seers.  Once  only  we  hear  of  priests  in 
the  peninsula,  not  as  contemporary,  but  in  the  legend 
of  Meleagros.  They  are  mentioned  plurally,  which 
nowhere  else  occurs,  and  in  connection  with  elders 
igeronfes),  so  that  probably  the  two  are  synonymous.  In 
this  view  it  would  not  be  the  professional  priest  who  is 
intended,  but  the  elder  or  house-father,  who  was  the 
original  sacrificer  ;  like  Abraham  or  Noah  in  Genesis, 
like  Agamemnon,  N'estor,  and  indeed  Priam,  in  the 
poems.  This  remarkable  distinction  may  be  traced 
down  to  the  historic  period;  for  the  priests  of  ancient 
Greece  do  not  seem  at  any  time  to  have  weighed 
greatly  in  the  political  or  social  scale. 


94  HOMER.  [CHAP. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

ETHNOLOGY. 

I.  Related  to  Mythology,— The  ethnology  of 
the  poems  stands  in  close  connection  with  their 
mythology.  That  mythology  fell  into  three  groups, 
{a)  the  old  Nature-powers  of  the  country ;  {b)  matter 
imported  by  the  immigrants  from  the  south  and  east ; 
and  {c)  a  group  of  higher  stamp,  broadly  distinguished 
from  the  others  ;  especially  from  the  first,  by  loftier  in- 
telligence, from  the  second  by  a  loftier  moral  standard. 
There  is  nothing  systematic  in  the  ethnology  of  the 
poems ;  nor  is  there  in  any  other  branch  of  the  in- 
struction which  they  afford,  and  which  is  only  to  be 
fully  attained  by  a  careful  gathering  and  comparison 
of  details.  As  to  tracing  particular  races  in  Greece, 
we  have  this  particular  difficulty  to  confront ;  that  the 
aim  of  our  poet  in  the  heroic  age  was  to  consolidate 
the  inward  unity  of  the  nation,  so  that  indications  of 
a  foreign  origin  for  any  of  its  branches  might  have 
tended  to  mar  the  design.  Accordingly  Homer  dis- 
closes to  us  nothing  of  any  Egyptian,  Phoenician,  or 
even  Achaian  settlements.  He  does  not  tell  us  from 
whence  came  settlers  like  Kadmos,  or  heads  of 
dynasties  like  Pelops,  or  Aiakos,  or  Portheus.  Per- 
haps the  only  excepUons  are  to  be  found  in  that 
speech  of  Zeus,  where  he  recounts  his  loves.  Here 
he  incidentally  shows  us  that  Minos,  the  source  of 
the  Cretan  royalty,  was  associated  with  a  Phoenician 
extraction ;  and,  in  making  Perseus  the  child  of 
Danae,  he  supplies  us  with  two  names,  of  which  the 
first,  from  evidence  afforded  by  the  poet  in  the 
names  of  Perse  and  Persephone,  and  the  latter  by 
the  light  of  Phoenician  history,  suggest  foreign  asso- 
ciations.      Besides    the    indirect    disclosures    of    the 


VII.]  ETHNOLOGY.  95 

poet,  we  have  the  aid  of  philology,  which  tells  us, 
for  example,  that  Kadmos  signifies  a  foreigner,  and 
which  discovers  the  root  of  the  names  of  some  among 
the  Nature-powers  in  the  existing  Albanian  tongue ; 
and  of  archaeology,  which,  by  disclosing  and  explain- 
ing ancient  monuments,  has  thrown  great  light  upon 
liie  connection  between  Homeric  knowledge  and 
foreign  sources. 

2.  The  Phoinikes  of  Homer. —  Every  reader 
of  these  poems  must  be  struck  by  the  recurrence  and 
the  importance  of  the  Phoenician  name;  most  of  all 
by  its  predominance  in  all  over-sea  navigation  to 
foreign  lands,  and  its  nearly  exclusive  association 
with  works  of  art.  We  must  carefully  bear  in  mind 
that  it  is  not,  apparently,  a  name  assumed  by  any 
race  or  people ;  but  only  a  name  given  them  by 
Homer  and  his  countrymen,  whose  destiny  it  was, 
long  afterwards,  to  bear  the  name  of  Greeks,  given 
them  by  the  Romans.  Of  the  city  of  Tyre  we  do  not 
yet  hear :  Sidon  is  the  Phoenician  centre  or  capital. 
The  Taphians  are  taken  to  be  a  Phoenician  colony; 
and  the  Phaiakes  of  Scherie  appear  to  be  an  iden- 
tical rendering  of  the  Phoinikes  proper,  from  the 
resemblance  of  the  names,  and  more  especially  from 
their  paramount  prerogatives  in  navigation,  and  their 
great  advancement  in  works  of  art.  We  see,  indeed, 
the  same  splendid  metallic  ornamentation  in  the 
palace  of  Menelaos,  as  in  the  palace  of  Alkinoos ; 
but  then  Menelaos  has  been  visiting  the  land  of  the 
Phoinikes.  We  find  Odusseus  himself  a  producer 
(the  only  one  in  Greece)  of  a  work  of  art ;  but  a 
number  of  marks  suggest  for  this  chief  a  Phoenician 
extraction.  Whenever  advanced  building-work  is 
mentioned,  there  is  always  some  foreign,  that  is 
Phoenician,  trace  to  be  discovered.  The  Games  in 
Scherie  are  given  at  length,  probably  because  they 
were  the  prototype  of  the  Games  of  Greece.  But  there 
is  no  chariot  race  in  those  Games ;  and  no  horse  is 

7*  9 


96  HOMER,  [CHAP. 

mentioned  anywhere  in  connection  with  the  Phaiakes, 
from  which  we  may  perceive  that  they  were  probably 
the  Phoinikes  proper,  worshippers  of  Poseidon,  and 
a  navigating  people,  but  whose  land  was  not  one  to 
be  reckoned  among  horse-breeding  countries. 

3.  Compare  the  Prankish  Name  of  later 
times. — It  appears  that  the  Phoenician  name  in  Homer 
stands  to  a  great  extent  for  that  of  foreigner  in  general. 
If,  as  I  suppose,  at  the  Troic  time,  or  shortly  before  it, 
Phoenicia  formed  a  part  of  the  great  Egyptian  Empire 
which  had  then  its  capital  at  Thebes,  Phoenician  ships 
supplied  the  means,  seemingly  the  exclusive  means,  of 
carrying  on  its  communications  with  its  transmarine 
possessions,  in  which  Greece  and  her  islands  were  in- 
cluded. Under  these  circumstances,  the  Phoenician 
name  would  very  naturally  signify  in  Greece  all  that 
was  Egyptian  and  Eastern,  which  is  near  y  equivalent 
to  saying,  all  that  was  foreign  :  as,  in  the  Levant,  the 
name  of  Frank  long  served  for  all  the  Western  peoples, 
in  consequence  of  the  prominence  of  the  French  nation 
in  the  long  series  of  the  Crusades. 

4.  Notes  of  Foreign  Connection. — There  is 
in  Homer  a  very  general  and  pervading  association 
between  a  group  of  marks,  of  which  a  portion  are 
Phoenicianism,  the  god  Poseidon,  the  use  and  special 
training  of  the  horse,  a  share  of  the  comparative  ad- 
vancement in  the  arts,  and  finally  the  use  of  the  archaic 
title  anax  and)  oil.  In  this  title,  the  use  of  the  genitive 
is  significant.  The  phrase  may  fairly  be  said  to  bear 
on  it  a  foreign  and  hereditary  stamp.  The  word  a?iax 
in  Homer  carries  with  it  an  idea  of  absolutism  or 
ownership  ;  and  such  a  lordship  of  men,  that  is  of  free 
men,  would  hardly  be  an  Achaian  idea.  Whenever 
anax  expresses  sovereignty,  the  noun  governed  is  in 
the  dative ;  except  in  two  instances  :  one  where  Sleep 
(whose  power  is  absolute)  is  the  anax  of  gods  and 
men;  another  where  it  is  joined  wx^laon  {li.  ix.  97), 
but  this  is  applied  to  Agamemnon,  an  anax  andrdn. 


VII.]  ETHNOLOGY,  97 

Basiletis,  not  anax,  was  the  national  expression  of  the 
highest  title  in  relation  to  a  free  Achaian  community. 
Homer  often  speaks  of  basilees  Achaion,  never  of 
anades  Achaion.  Again,  the  title  of  anax  andron 
seems  to  have  belonged  to  senior  branches  only.  It 
is  therefore  borne  by  Anchises  and  Aineias,  but  not 
by  Priam  or  any  of  his  sons.  Agamemnon  the  elder 
brother,  has  it ;  Menelaos,  the  younger,  has  not. 
Again,  all  these  have  horses  specially  named  or  indi- 
cated as  belonging  to  them.  Two  other  persons, 
Augeias  and  Eumelos  have  the  title ;  and  of  these 
Augeias  presides  over  the  chariot-races  of  Elis,  while 
Eumelos  has  the  finest  mortal  horses  of  the  army. 
Only  one  other  person  is  named  in  a  single  passage  as 
a?tax  andron,  and  he  is  king  of  Ephure,  a  town-name 
which,  by  various  signs,  is  connected  with  Phoenician 
or  southern  associations.  Poseidon  is  peculiarly  the  god 
of  the  horse ;  and  possibly  became  the  Greek  or 
Olympian  sea-god,  because  the  horse  came  into  Greece 
by  sea.  He  is  unquestionably  associated  with  the  south, 
by  his  special  connection  with  the  Aithiopes,  and  by 
various  other  notes.  The  use  of  the  horse,  which  was 
unknown  to  the  Memphian  or  first  Egyptian  empire, 
was  introduced  under  the  second,  apparently  from 
Libya  or  Upper  Egypt,  or  both.  The  tests  for  tracing 
foreign  origin,  which  I  have  pointed  out,  are  a  portion 
only  of  those  which  the  poems  supply.  Another  is 
the  name  of  Aiolos.  Bellerophon  the  Aiolid  can  be 
shown  from  the  text  to  be  descended  from  Poseidon, 
and  this  is  declaring  in  other  words  his  foreign  ex- 
traction. 

5.  Foreign,  or  Phcenician  Element  in  the 
Greek  Nation. — It  is  not  possible  in  the  brief  com- 
pass of  these  pages  to  draw  out  and  connect  in  their 
varied  groups  the  particulars  of  proof,  but  even  what  has 
been  said  may  serve  to  suggest  the  presence,  at  the 
Troic  era,  of  an  element  in  the  Greek  nation  origi- 
nally foreign,  but  now  domesticated.     This  element 


98  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

is  everywhere  associated  with  an  advanced  condition 
as  to  the  arts  of  life,  and  it  supplies  Greece  with 
many  of  its  ruling  houses.  It  seems  allowable  to 
suggest  by  way  of  conjecture,  that  the  founders  of 
these  houses  may  have  been  persons  who  themselves, 
or  whose  ancestors,  had  first  come  into  the  country  as 
the  local  representatives  of  the  Egyptian  power.  1  v/i  1 
finally  point  out  that  we  have  one  clear  instance  of 
this  immigration  from  the  soudi-east  in  the  case  oi 
Kadmos  and  the  setders  he  brought  into  Boeotia ; 
against  whom,  under  the  name  of  Kadmeians,  the 
Achaians  made  war  one  generation  before  the  war  of 
Troy.  Generally,  however,  we  trace  rather  the  ap- 
pearance of  single  families  in  this  connection,  than  of 
setders  in  bodies  ;  we  have  Aiolids  in  Homer,  but 
Aiolians  as  a  tnbe  or  race  (who  however  continued 
in  the  historic  time  to  be  specially  connected  with  the 
Poseidon-worship)  are  not  found  there,  and  seem 
to  belong  to  the  Dorian,  not  the  Achaian  period. 
This  Phoenician  element  of  the  Greek  nation  was 
non-Aryan;  it  was  numerically  weak,  but  was  power- 
ful in  station,  wealth,  intelligence,  and  social  advance- 
ment. 

6.  Hair  as  an  Index  of  Race. — One  of  the 
curious  notes  attached  to  naiionality  in  Homer  is  the 
colour  of  the  hair.  Dark  hair  is  a  note  of  the 
foreigner,  and  of  southern  extraction.  There  is 
great  personal  beauty  in  the  royal  family  of  Troy: 
but  no  auburn  or  light  hair  is  ever  found  there.  Posei- 
don is,  among  other  modes,  marked  for  a  southern 
deity  by  his  carrying  the  name  of  "  the  dark-haired," 
not  merely  as  an  epithet,  but  as  a  distinctive  title. 
Zeus  had  dark  eye-brows,  but  is  nowhere  stated  to 
have  dark  hair.  Nor  have  the  Greek  chieftains. 
Achilles  and  Menelaos  have  the  colour  of  their  hair 
mentioned,  and  it  is  auburn.  Pelops  may  have  been 
a  foreigner;  if  so.  there  is  little  doubt  that  the  use 
of  this  cpilliet  for  Menelaos   is   meant  to  maik  the 


VII.]  ETHNOLOGY.  99 

complete  naturalisation  of  the  family.  Odusseus,  too, 
had  auburn  hair;  though  his  beatd  was  dark  i^Od. 
xiii.  397,  xvi.  176).  I  have  been  assured  that,  in  the 
Greece  of  to-day,  light  hair  is  still  held  as  indicating 
the  purest  Hellenic  blood. 

7.  Two  other  Elements  in  the  Greek  Na- 
tion.— In  the  non-Phcenician  mass  of  the  Greek 
people,  it  is  not  difficult  to  trace  a  plain  dualism  of 
race.  The  two  great  factors  of  the  nation,  thus  indi- 
cated, it  will  perhaps  be  well  to  call  respectively  the 
Achaian  and  Pelasgian  factors.  Universal  tradition 
makes  the  Pelasgians  the  first  and  pre-Hellenic  inhabi- 
tants of  the  country.  The  Arcadians  of  Homer  are 
marked  as  bearing  specially  this  aboriginal  character. 
They  dwelt  in  the  central  hill  country  of  Peloponnesos, 
while  the  dominant  race  remained  in  the  plains  and 
the  more  accessible  country  near  the  sea.  They  had 
no  maritime  pursuits.  They  sailed  to  Troy  in  ships 
provided  by  Agamemnon,  and  probably  as  part  of  his 
contingent. 

8.  The  Achaian  Element. — A  broader  indica- 
tion may  be  found  by  examining  the  incidents  which 
attach  to  the  three  national  appellatives  of  the 
poems,  namely,  Danaan,  Argeian,  and  Achaian. 
'I'he  Danaan  name  is  never  attached  to  the  people 
historically  or  politically  :  but  in  the  army  only.  Its 
epithets  are  martial,  and  the  use  of  the  word  appears 
to  be  altogether  archaic  and  poetic.  The  Achaian 
name  is  the  true  national  name  of  the  period  :  and  it 
is  used  more  frequently  than  the  Danaan  and  the 
Argeian  names  taken  together.  As  used  in  the  army, 
it  has  a  very  perceptible  leaning  towards  the  chiefs 
and  the  upper  class.  As  employed  historically  and 
beyond  the  camp,  it  has  sometimes  a  local  force.  So 
It  is  applied  in  the  Catalogue  to  the  people  of  Aigina 
and  Mases,  and  in  the  Odyssey  to  a  part  of  Crete ; 
indicating  points,  probably,  at  which  the  race  had 
first  settled  down  after  its  southward  movement.    It  is 


loo  HOMER,  [chap. 

more  remarkably  applied  to  the  followers  of  Achilles  ; 
lor  here  it  is,  as  has  been  already  shown,  immediately 
coupled  with  the  Hellenic  name ;  and  the  name 
Hellene,  itself  derivative  from  Helloi  and  akin  to 
Hellas,  is  associated  with  those  first  ancestors  of  the 
stock  by  the  prayer  of  Achilles  to  the  Dodonaian 
Zeus  of  his  neighbourhood,  the  god  who  had  these 
Helloi  for  his  ministers.  But  the  name  of  Achaians 
is  used  in  Ithaca,  where  the  tribal  sub-name  of  the 
inhabitants  was  Kephallenes,  evidently  because  it  was 
the  current  national  name ;  and  it  is  commonly  so  em- 
ployed in  Homer.  Further,  the  poems  indicate  to  us 
the  time  when  the  Achaian  name  began  to  be  thus  em- 
ployed, and  what  name  it  supplanted.  Its  application 
IS  Jimited  to  the  Pelopid  period  upwards.  The  army 
which  marched  against  Thebes,  one  generation  before 
the  war,  is  an  Achaian  army.  There  were  Achaians, 
too,  in  the  youth  of  Nestor.  But,  in  the  nineteenth 
Jliad^  we  have  a  legend  of  the  births  of  Eurustheus  and 
of  Heracles  m  the  previous  or  Perseid  period.  Here 
the  name  given  to  the  population,  over  whom  the  na- 
scent babe  was  to  reign,  is  not  Achaians,  but  Argeians. 
Proitos,  nearly  at  the  same  epoch,  was  a  ruler  over 
"  Argeians."  Thus  we  see  tlie  Achaians  take  their 
place  as  a  conquering,  or  at  any  rate  a  ruling,  race 
over  and  among  a  pre-existing  population.  In  them 
we  have  the  second  great  factor  of  the  Greek  people. 
With  them  comes  the  first  rise  of  the  Hellenic  stock, 
to  which  they  belonged,  and  which,  with  Agamemnon 
for  its  political  head,  had  Achilles  for  its  typical  and 
ideal  example.  It  is  evident  that  this  race  did  not 
bring  with  them  the  arts  into  Greece,  but  found  them 
there :  found  them  among  the  old  population,  as  to 
settled  social  life  ;  among  the  Phoenician  immigrants, 
as  to  advance  and  culture.  What  they  seem  to  have 
brought  with  them  was  the  true  political  spirit ;  the 
faculty  of  nation-making;  the  power,  will,  and  fitness 
to  fill  the  highest  place;  the  capacity  to  receive  every 


VII.]  ETHNOLOGY.  lor 

lesson  in  art  and  culture  that  the  children  of  the  East 
could  convey  and  to  open  and  develop  it  to  a  point 
beyond  what  the  East  had  dreamed  of. 

9.  Use  of  tne  Argeian  Name  in  Homer. — 
Who,  then,  were  these  Argeians,  whose  name  was  su|y-, 
planted  by  the  name  of  a  more  imperial  stock  ?  Eirst 
let  us  look  at  the  epithets  applied  in  the  Iliad,  where 
this  appellation  is  used  :  for  in  the  Odyssey  it  has 
practically  disappeared.  It  is  employed  in  the  singu- 
lar, as  m.  the  ''Argeian  Helen  :"  but  here  the  name 
is  purely  local ;  it  meant  what  is  commonly  called 
Argive,  and  has  its  propriety  from  her  being  an  Argive 
domiciled  in  Troy.  In  the  plural,  it  soir.eiimes  means 
the  soldiery  of  the  army,  sometimes  the  inhabitants 
q{  North-eastern  Peloponnesos.  When  applied  to 
the  soldiery,  it  very  rarely  carries  a  descriptive  epithet ; 
widely  ditfering  herein  from  the  Danaan  and  Achaian 
names,  which  abound  in  epithets  descriptive  of  high 
qualities.  I'his  prepares  us  for  another  characteristic  ; 
it  is  never  applied  distinctively  to  the  chiefs,  but  seems 
plainly  to  indicate  the  inferior  mass.     * 

10.  Its  Probable  Meaning. — Wlien  we  look  to 
the  word  itself,  there  is  great  reason  to  believe  that  it 
means  field  tiller,  or  cultivator  ;  in  which  way  it  would 
most  appropriately  designate  those  who  had  first  estab- 
lished settled  agriculture  in  the  peninsula  of  Greece. 
On  the  one  side  it  is  related  to  ergon,  which,  in  the 
old  Greek  of  the  Peloponnesos,  was  always,  or  some- 
times, written  argon,  and  which  in  its  application  to 
man  (for  women  it  means  tissues,  and  the  like)  signi- 
fies primarily  the  labours  of  agriculture.  On  the 
other  side  it  is  related  to  agros,  which  in  Homer's 
time  meant  the  country  as  distinct  from  the  town. 
It  is,  further,  akin  to  the  epithet  argos,  which  appears 
to  have  for  its  ground-meaning  the  idea  of  strenuous 
or  laborious.  There  is  some  reason  to  believe  that 
at  one  time  argeios  came  to  have  the  meaning  of  the 
Latin  word  agrestis,  as  opposed  to  urbanus,  or  rustic, 


I02  HOMER.  [cHAi». 

in  the  sense  of  rude.  Enough  has  perhaps  now  been 
said  to  indicate  the  presence  in  Greece  of  a  pervading 
rural  population,  who  had  established  family  life,  and 
village  communities  somewhat  after  the  manner  oi 
those  among  the  present  Slavonians.  It  appears  also 
that  they  had  towns,  if  they  were  the  population 
largely  embraced  under  the  name  of  Pelasgians.  For 
the  Pelasgians  of  the  second  Jliad  had  a  Larissa ; 
and  Larissa  is  a  name  referred  by  Strabo  to  Pelasgic 
origin,  and  signifying  a  citadel  or  place  of  security. 
But,  m  truth,  the  distinction  of  city  and  village,  as  to 
size,  was  slight:  the  place  of  refuge  and  defence  Avas 
as  such  necessarily  confined.  It  need  not  surprise 
us  were  it  to  be  proved  that  the  hill  of  Hissarlik,  if  it 
were  the  actual  Troy,  did  not  allow  for  that  city  of 
deathless  and  world-wide  renown  a  space  much  or 
at  all  exceeding  three  acres. 

II.  The  Pelasgian  Element.— In  the  Argeian 
population  we  may  recognise  what  I  have  called  the 
Pelasgian  character.  At  any  rate  we  find,  apart  from 
this  or  that  name,  more  or  less  conventional,  the 
industrial  and  rural  quality,  which  marks  them  as 
probably  the  thud,  and  numerically  most  important, 
factor  of  the  nation. 

The  character,  which  has  here  been  ascribed  to  the 
Argeian  or  Pelasgian  population,  can  be  traced  in 
the  l/wd  by  the  industrial  names  given  to  the  undis- 
tinguished soldiery.  In  their  case,  as  in  the  remark- 
able case  of  the  Scherian  seafarers,  and  of  the  Nereid 
nymphs,  Homer  avails  himself  of  proper  names  to  tell 
the  story  of  the  persons  themselves  by  means  of  etymo- 
logy. This  observation  applies  also  to  those  whom 
he  calls  lonians  ;  and  to  the  Trojan  soldiery,  who  are 
not  at  all  exhibited  in  that  marked  inferiority  to  the 
Greek  mass,  which  is  found  in  the  chieftains.  Among 
the  Greek  chiefs  we  never  find  these  industrial  names  ; 
but,  where  we  can  trace  the  roots,  many  appellations 
descriptive  of  high  qualities,    such    as  Thrasumedes 


VII.]  ETHNOLOGY.  103 

Peisistratos,  Menelaos,  Agamemnon,  Sthenelos,  Pro- 
tesilaos.  No  names  of  this  kind  will  be  found  among 
the  Attic  or  Ionian  persons  mentioned  in  //.  xiii.  690, 
I,  XV.  332,  7,  8;  only  one  among  thirteen  Trojans  of 
the  common  order  despatched  in  the  fifth  Book  ; 
only  three  among  seventeen  ordinary  Greeks  slain  by 
Hektor  and  Ares  in  the  fifth  and  eleventh  Books  ;  a 
very  large  proportion  among  the  Lycians  (of  //.  v.  677, 
8),  whom  the  poet  recognises  as  having  a  strongly 
Hellenic  character;  and  a  large  proportion  also  among 
the  Suitors  of  the  Odyssey.  In  opposition  to  the 
tunic-trailing  laones,  these  Lycians  are  amttrochitdnes ; 
they  wear  the  short  tunic,  not  requiring  a  girdle,  which 
is  suited  to  an  active  and  martial  race. 

12.  laones.  Javan.  The  Mythical  Hellen. 
— It  thus  appears  that  the  lonians  in  Homer  rank 
rather  with  the  industrial,  than  the  imperial,  element 
of  the  population  in  Greece.  It  is  another  question 
what  light  can  be  thrown  upon  their  history  from  other 
quarters.  It  is  held,  says  Professor  Rawlinson  in  his 
Origin  of  Nations^  that  these  laones,  for  such  is  their 
Homeric  name,  represent  the  Javan  of  that  great  eth- 
nographic document,  chap.  x.  of  the  Book  of  Genesis  : 
and  that  the  Greeks  generally  were  known  in  the  East 
under  the  name  of  Javan.  But  the  student  cannot  be 
too  careful,  m  approaching  the  ethnology  of  Homer,  to 
dismiss  wholly  from  his  mind  the  post-Homeric  verses, 
which  describe  a  Hellen  as  tlie  father  of  the  Greek 
race,  with  Doros,  Aiolos,  and  Xouthos  for  his  sons, 
and  Xouthos  again  with  two  sons,  Ion  and  Achaios. 
This  misleading  composition  is  much  later  than 
Homer :  it  belongs  to  a  time  when  Hellenes  had 
been  established  as  the  common  name  of  all  Greeks, 
when,  among  the  particular  races,  the  Dorians  had  the 
pre-eminence  ;  when  the  Aiolians  were  a  race,  and  not 
the  family  of  a  (real  or  mythical)  person ;  when  the 
Achaians  had  shrunk  into  insignificance ;  and  when 
the  lonians  of  Athens  had  come  into  a  forward  place. 


104  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

Every  item  of  this  enumeration  is  in  conflict  with  the 
text  of  Homer,  and  betrays  a  different  and  later  age. 

There  are  many  other  race-names  in  Homer ;  but 
none  which  throw  any  general  light,  either  on  the 
poems,  or  on  the  formation  of  the  Greek  nation. 


CHAPTER  Vni. 

ETHICS    OF    THE    ACHAIAN    TIME. 

1.  Relation  of  Morals  to  Religion. — ^The 
ethics,  or  morals,  of  the  Achaian  time  are  connected 
with  its  religion,  not  universally,  as  in  the  Christian 
ages,  but  sub  modo.  The  morality  of  the  Homeric 
man  is  founded  on  duty,  not  to  the  particular  person- 
ages of  the  Olympian  system,  but  to  the  divinity,  theos, 
or  the  gods  in  general,  theoi.  Sometimes  to  Zeus  ;  not, 
however,  as  the  mere  head  of  the  Olympian  Court,  but 
as  heir-general  to  the  fragments  and  relics  of  the  old 
monotheistic  traditions.  One  of  the  greatest  branches, 
and  props,  of  morality  for  the  heroic  age  lay  in  the  care 
of  the  stranger  and  the  poor  ;  and  of  this  law  Zeus  was 
the  peculiar  guardian,  as  he  was  {^Od.  xiii.  213)  of  the 
moral  law  at  large.  The  current  of  these  moral  ideas 
runs  through  the  poems  in  a  great  degree  separately 
from  the  mythology,  yet  by  the  side  of  it,  like  rivers 
in  certain  cases,  whose  waters  can  be  distinguished 
after  their  junction.  Of  the  whole  supernatural  ap- 
paratus, perhaps  the  most  ethical  part  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Erinues,  and  in  that  ingredient  of  the  idea  of 
Destiny  which  is  represented  by  the  word  Aisa. 

2.  To  Ritual. — But  the  morality  of  the  period  is 
also  connected  with,  and  really,  if  partially,  sustained 
by  its  ritual.  Sacrifice  could  not  be  substituted  for 
duty,  nor  could  prayer.  Such,  upon  the  abduction  of 
Chruseis,  was  the  reply  of  Calchas  the  Seer  ;  nothing 


VIII.]        ETHICS  OF  THE  ACHAIAN  TIME.  105 

would  avail  but  restitution  ;  and  this  not  the  restitu- 
tion of  the  maid  for  a  price,  as  it  was  originally  asked 
and  refused,  but  restitution  without  any  compensation. 
It  is  true,  that  the  gods  among  themselves  speak  more 
of  the  sacrifices  which  men  offer  as  a  title  to  divine 
favour,  than  of  their  performance  of  duty.  But  this 
seems  to  be  an  exhibition  of  their  own  theanthropic 
nature  on  the  appetitive  side,  rather  than  an  indi- 
cation of  the  heroic  morals.  Some  facts  at  any  rate 
are  plain  :  first,  that  the  men,  whose  liberality  in 
sacrifice  they  commend,  are  good  men,  such  as 
Hektor,  Eumaios,  and  Odusseus  ;  secondly,  the  bad 
men,  such  as  Paris  and  the  Suitors,  are  not  men- 
tioned as  habitually  liberal  offerers.  The  only  case, 
in  which  a  great  sinner  shows  bounty  in  sacrifice,  is 
that  of  Aigisthos,  after  he  has  corrupted  Clutaim- 
nestra.  But  he  had  been  ordered  beforehand  by  the 
gods  not  to  commit  the  crimes,  and  his  efforts  at 
sacrificial  bribery  did  not  prevent  them  from  ordain- 
ing {Od.  L  40)  a  terrible  retribution.  Thirdly,  in  the 
description  of  character,  piety  to  the  gods  is  commonly 
united  with,  not  disjoined  from,  the  discharge  of 
relative  duty;  as  in  Od.  vi.  120,  where  the  question 
is  asked,  *'  Are  they  insolent,  fierce,  and  unrighteous, 
or  are  they  good  to  strangers,  and  pious  towards  the 
gods?"  The  bad  men,  notably  such  as  Poluphemos 
and  the  Kuklopes,  who  despise  duty  to  man,  are  also 
contemners  of  the  gods.  Thus  then  the  morality  of 
the  poems  is  in  principle  a  religious  morality,  a  chain 
binding  earth  to  heaven. 

3.  The  Beginnings  of  Corruption. — It  was 
flecked,  however,  with  spots  of  nascent  corruption, 
which  were  sure  to  spread ;  and  unhappily  the  taint 
came  with  the  mythology  itself.  Hermes,  a  deity  of 
Phoenician  importation,  grants  to  men  the  endowments 
of  perjury  and  theft.  Athene  exults  in  her  own  tricks 
and  those  of  Odusseus,  which,  however,  stand  in  clear 
contradiction  to  the  indignant  truthfulness  of  Achilles. 


ro6  HOMER,  [chai'. 

Lust  was  mythologically  exhibited  to  the  Greek  eye  in 
various  forms,  especially  in  the  characters  of  Zeus  and 
of  Aphrodite  ;  and  the  episode  of  the  Eighth  Odyssey 
recited  in  Scherie,  shows  us  what  vile  examples  the 
East  was  already  setting,  in  the  glorification  of  shame- 
less adultery,  to  the  Achaian  race.  The  character  of 
Heracles  as  it  is  given  in  the  poems,  is  marked  with 
lawless  violence  ;  and  his  shade  is  in  the  Under-world, 
but  he  himself  {auios)  has  joined  the  banquets  of  the 
gods.  These  were,  however,  perilous  yet  recent  ex- 
ceptions. They  had  not  become  the  rule.  As  a 
general  law,  the  man  who  did  his  duly  was  the  mnn 
who  well  served  the  gods,  and  who  was  accepted  by 
them. 

4.  It  was  in  some  respects  a  Reform. — When 
we  take  note  of  moral  defects  in  the  Olympian  system, 
we  must  bear  in  mind,  that  it  repudiated  the  worship  of 
inanimate  bodies  and  animals ;  that  at  least  it  greatly 
retrenched  the  iniquities,  with  which  Asia  had  already 
polluted  its  religion  ;  and  that  it  expelled  altogether 
the  very  basest  of  those  elements,  which  it  was  left  for 
later  and  more  polished  times  to  reintroduce. 

5.  The  Law  of  Duty. — The  law  of  duty,  as 
between  man  and  man,  thus  on  the  whole  sustained 
by  religion,  was  undoubtedly  real,  if  imperfect.  The 
most  striking  proof  of  this  reality  is  to  be  found  in  the 
remarkable  fidelity  and  consistency  with  which  the 
poet  uses  his  command  over  the  sympathies  of  the 
hearers,  so  as  to  direct  them  towards  good  persons 
and  good  ends,  and  to  ectrange  them  from  the  bad. 
In  the  very  groundwork  both  of  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey,  the  cause  of  Greece  and  the  cause  of  Odus- 
seus,  which  gain  the  upper  hand,  are  each  the  cause  of 
right,  justice,  and  the  family  order.  Not  only  is  this  so, 
but  in  each  particular  case  we  are  impelled  or  led  in 
such  a  way  by  the  master,  that  we  like  and  dislike  as  we 
ought  to  like  and  dislike  ;  and,  again,  not  only  as  to 
the  main  distinction  between  good  and  bad,  but  even 


viii.]         ETHICS  OF  THE  ACHAIAN  TIME.  IQ-J 

as  to  the  shades  of  each.  In  the  Iliad,  Paris,  Aphro- 
dite, and  Thersites,  in  the  Odys'iey  the  Suitors  and  the 
paramour  Melantho,  are  made  odious  to  us.  There 
is  no  tampering  with  the  greatest  moral  laws ;  as  far  as 
Homer  knows  right,  he  works  it  out  loyally  into  the 
tissue  of  his  poems.  The  splendid  gifts  of  Achilles 
and  Odusseus  do  not  inspire  an  undiscriminating  ad- 
miration :  we  feel  free  to  censure  the  savage  element 
in  the  retribution  administered  to  the  gross  offence  of 
Agamemnon,  and  to  question  the  terrible  sternness,  in 
some  points,  of  the  tragedy  in  the  Ithacan  palace.  The 
splendid  beauty,  and  even  the  gracious  penitential 
humility,  of  Helen  do  not  bewitch  us  into  a  forgetful- 
ness  that  she  had  erred.  Our  unmixed  sympathy  is 
reserved  for  characters  such  as  the  grand  Penelope, 
the  affectionate  Andromache ;  for  Nausicaa,  the  flower 
of  maidenhood  ;  for  Eumaios,  the  picture  of  an  mtel- 
ligent,  sound-hearted,  and  devoted  dependent.  No 
small  proportion  of  writers  in  the  Christian  period 
fail  to  carry  our  instincts  of  approval  and  disapproval 
to  their  proper  aims  with  the  unfailing  rectitude  of 
Homer. 

6.  Slavery. — Two  of  the  testing  questions  for  the 
Achaian  ethics  are,  the  institution  of  slavery,  and  the 
estimate  and  position  of  woman.  The  blot  of  slavery 
is  there  ;  and  that  is  all.  As  far  as  the  poems  inform  us, 
it  was  domestic,  and  not  predial  slavery  :  connected, 
in  all  cases,  with  the  supply  of  the  household,  or  with 
oersonal  attendance  on  its  heads.  The  slave  could 
hold  property.  We  hear  of  no  exceptional  laws  con- 
cerning him  beyond  the  essential  one  that,  receiving 
his  food,  raiment,  and  domicile,  he  laboured  generally 
for  another,  yet  apparently  not  with  the  rigid  exclusion 
of  all  acquisition  for  himself.  Arms  are  given  to  the 
slaves  of  Odusseus,  and  are  used  by  them,  as  if  there 
was  nothing  unusual  in  it.  They  were  not  of  inferior 
races  :  they  seem  to  have  been  usually  captives,  who 
would  often  be  of  birth  and  rearing  higher  than  the 
10 


io8  HOMER,  [CHAP. 

commonalty.     Reasoning  from  the  Odyssey,  we  need 
not  suppose  that  slaves  were  excluded  from  the  army 
before  l>oy.     In  fact  the  presence  of  a  few  names 
among   the  common  soldiery,   such  as  Agelaos   and 
Aisumnos,    which   have  ahinity   to  the   higher  class, 
leads  to  the  conjecture  that  there  were  slaves  serving 
in  the  army,  who  had  been  born  to  a  better  station. 
But,   even  though  a  mild  slavery,  it  must  have  been 
attended  with  a  sense  of  depression  and  disappoint- 
ment, and  abatement  of  the  higher  energies.     It  did 
not,  however,  like  modern  slavery,  pervert  the  public 
opinion  of  the  community  with   regard    to  its  own 
nature,  if,  as   is   probable,  Homer  was   in   harmony 
with  his  hearers  when  he  sang  that  on  the  day  when 
the  freeman    became  a  slave,   he   lost,  by  the  ordi- 
nance of  Zeus,  one  half  his  manhood  {^Od.  xvii.  322). 
7.  Estimate   and    Position    of    Woman. — 
Much  better  than  this  can  the  Achaian  age  bear  the 
application  of  the  test  drawn  from  the  estimate  of 
woman.  Here  again  there  can  be  no  stronger  evidence, 
than  the  stamp  which  Homer  has  set  on  his  female 
characters.      The   most   notable   of    them    compare 
advantageously  with  those  commended  to  us  in  the 
Old  Testament :  while  Achaian  Jezebels  are  nowhere 
found.     There  is  a  certain  authority  of  the  man  over 
the  woman ;  but  it  does  not  destroy  freedom,  or  imply 
the  absence  either  of  respect,  or  of  a  close  mental 
and    moral   fellowship.       Not    only   the    relation    of 
Odusseus  to  Penelope  and  of  Hector  to  Andromache, 
but  those  of  Achilles  to  Briseis,  and  of  Menelaos  to 
the  returned  Helen,  are  full  of  dignity  and  attachment. 
Briseis  was  but  a  captive,  yet  Achilles  viewed  her  as 
in  expectation  a  wife,  called  her  so,  avowed  his  love 
for  her,  and  laid  it  down  that  not  he  only,  but  every 
man  must  love  his  wife,  if  he  had  sense  and  virtue. 
Among  the  Achaian  Greeks,  monogamy  is  invariable; 
divorce  unknown  :  incest  abhorred.     The  sin  of  the 
father  of  Phoinix  with  a  loose  woman  is  recorded  as 


VIII.]        ETHICS  OF  THE  ACHAL4X  TIME.  \o) 

a  gross  dishonour  to  his  mother.  Aigisthos,  having 
commiUed  a  crime  in  the  murder  ot"  AgaiViemnon, 
commits  another  crime  {Od.  i.  39)  by  marrying  his 
widow.  Only  in  one  case  have  we  any  trace  of  what 
may  be  termed  professional  or  promiscuous  lust. 
The  sad  institution  which,  in  Saint  Augustine's  time, 
was  viewed  by  him  as  saving  the  world  from  yet  worse 
evil,  is  unknown  or  unrecorded.  Concubinage  prevails 
in  the  camp  before  Troy,  but  only  single  concubinage. 
Some  of  the  women,  attendants  in  the  Ithacan  palace, 
were  corrupted  by  the  evil-minded  Suitors ;  but  some 
were  not.  It  should  perhaps  be  noted  as  a  token  of 
the  respect  paid  to  the  position  of  the  woman,  that 
these  very  bad  men  are  not  represented  as  ever  having 
included  in  their  plans  the  idea  of  offering  violence  to 
Penelope.  The  noblest  note,  however,  of  the  Homeric 
woman  remains  this,  that  she  shares  the  thought  and 
heart  of  the  husband  :  as  in  the  fine  utterance  of  Pene- 
lope, she  prays  that  rather  she  may  be  torn  away  by  the 
Harpies  than  remain  "  to  glad  the  spirit  of  a  meaner 
man  "  {Od,  xx.  S>2)  than  her  great  husband,  still  away 
from  her. 

8.  Fundamental  Merits  and  Defects. — If  we 
go  over  the  forms  of  vice  and  virtue  in  detail,  it  will 
appear  upon  the  whole,  that  natural  law  was  profoundly 
revered,  while  conventional  law  hardly  yet  existed ; 
that  there  was  a  deep  and  even  delicate  sense  of  the 
dignity  of  man,  and  a  total  absence  of  the  extreme 
forms  of  wickedness,  with  which  later  ages  have  been 
familiar  ;  but  a  low  estimate  of  the  value  of  life,  which 
we  now  measure  somewhat  more  justly,  and  an 
apparent  licentiousness  as  to  property,  the  law  of 
tncic/n  and  tnuni,  which  when  examined  opens  out 
into  a  defect  of  wider  range;  an  incapacity,  namely,  or 
indisposition,  to  acknowledge  in  foreign  communities, 
and  their  members  individually,  the  possession  of  that 
general  human  right  {themis  and  themistes),  which  were 
an  elementary  idea  as  between  the  members   of  ihcf 


no  HOMER.  [chap. 

Greek  civil  society,  the  rulers  and  the  ruled.  We 
never  hear  of  a  Greek  slave  :  but  the  best  men  did 
not  scruple  to  purchase  the  kidnapped  victims  v/hom 
Phoenician  vessels  brought  from  abroad  to  their  shores. 
When  Odusseus  says  {Od.  xxni.  357)  he  will  repair  the 
live-stock  the  Suitors  had  wasted  partly  by  plunder, 
partly  by  the  free  gifts  of  Achaians,  it  would  appear  that 
the  plunder  in  view  must  have  been  foreign,  for  he  could 
hardly  look  lor  voluntary  offenngs  from  a  class  whose 
property  he  meant  to  lay  waste.  In  this  view,  the 
question,  commonly  put  to  strangers  on  their  arrival, 
is  not  without  interest,  "  Who  are  you,  and  from 
whom;  where  are  your  city  and  your  ancestors?" 
Tins  is  no  mere  curiosity  :  it  is  rather  an  inquiry 
whether  the  new-comers  are  possessed  of  a  presump- 
tive title  to  hospitality  as  Greeks,  so  as  to  be  xenoiy 
or  to  have  had  the  xenian  tie  formed  by  earlier  inter- 
course; or  whether  they  are  buccaneers,  who  scour  the 
seas  at  the  hazard  of  their  lives,  and  carry  with  them 
woe,  but  to  whom  ?  not  to  neighbours,  nor  to  men 
at  large,  but  to  allodapoi  {Od.  iii.  74),  the  foreigners 
or  strangers  proper,  with  whom  they  have  no  social 
bond  of  union. 

9.  View  of  Homicide. — Homicide  in  these  cir- 
cumstances was  lightly  regarded  ;  and  Odusseus,  when 
feigning  himself  a  Cretan,  does  not  scruple  to  say, 
even  while  he  is  making  a  plea  for  himself  as  a  stranger 
in  Ithaca,  that  he  deliberately  took  the  life  of  one 
who  had  only  deprived,  or  sought  to  deprive,  him  of 
his  due  share  in  the  spoils  of  Troy.  Commonly  the 
man-slayer  of  the  poems  has  acted  in  passion,  and  he 
tiies  after  the  act,  because  the  relations  are  entided 
to  retaliate.  But,  when  he  has  escaped,  he  loses  none 
of  the  general  titles  to  hospitality  enjoyed  by  the 
stranger.  He  may  become  indeed  a  suppliant 
[hiketh),  but  Zeus  guards  the  rights  of  suppliants 
as  well  as  of  other  wanderers  and  poor  (Od.  xiii.  213, 
xvi.  422.)     These  ideas  must  have  been  most  deeply 


VIII.]         ETHICS  OF  THE  ACHAIAiV  TIME.  iii 

rooted  ;  for  down  to  our  own  time  they  have  been 
found  to  subsist  and  operate  in  the  Greek  peninsula. 

10.  Family  Life.  —  The  obligations  of  family 
life  were  very  strongly  felt  in  paternal,  filial,  and  fra- 
ternal, as  well  as  in  conjugal  relations.  Phoinix  in 
youth  becomes  exasperated  against  his  father  for 
gross  wrong  to  his  mother,  aggravated  by  what  follows 
with  himself:  he  feels  tempted  to  parricide,  but  flies 
his  country  to  avoid  the  infamy  sure  to  follow  upon 
the  sin.  Brother  is  attached  to  brother,  as  Deiphobos 
to  Hector ;  and  Agamemnon,  though  a  selfish  cha- 
racter, to  Menelaos.  In  Sarpedon  and  Glaukos,  we  see 
the  warm  love  of  cousins.  The  mother  of  Odusseus 
pines  away  and  dies,  from  yearning  for  her  absent  son. 
The  grief  of  old  Laertes  at  the  fiction  of  his  death,  his 
passionate  and  seemingly  dangerous  joy  when  assured 
that  he  really  sees  him,  have  more  than  all  the  fresh- 
ness of  aftection  in  its  prime.  The  last  adjuration  of 
Hector  to  Achilles  is  in  the  name  of  his  parents ;  and 
the  line,  in  which  Priam  beseeches  the  tremendous 
warrior  to  remember  Peleus,  is  one  of  the  most  fa- 
mous in  all  literature.  The  young  are  tenderly  cared 
for.  The  rights  of  the  old  to  authority  and  reverence 
are  strongly  felt.  They  exercise  the  offices  of  the 
judge,  the  priest,  the  counsellor.  But  here,  as  else- 
where, we  observe  a  profound  good  sense  in  the 
Achaian  time  and  race,  which  pushes  no  claim  to 
extremes.  Laertes,  when  he  has  lost  the  full  posses- 
sion of  his  powers,  goes  into  retirement ;  and  it 
even  appears  Irom  a  line  in  the  Iliad  (v.  92)  as  if 
sovereignty  was  most  usually  exercised  by  those 
only  who  had  reached,  but  had  not  passed,  the 
maturity  of  their  corporal  and  mental  powers. 

11.  Particular  Virtues  and  Failings. — Let  us 
conclude  with  a  few  notes  on  particulars.  Wine  was 
sociably  enjoyed,  but  drunkenness  was  abhorred,  and 
is  always  followed  by  calamity ;  it  partakes  of  brutal 
excess,   dishonours    nature,   and    therefore   is   much 

8* 


112  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

more  than  merely  disapproved.  Sexual  frailty  exists 
among  Achaians,  only  in  narrow  measure.  A  certain 
element  of  boastfulness  is  discoverable  even  in  so 
gallant  a  chief  as  Diomed.  Nor  is  he  ashamed  to  take 
an  advantage  of  Glaukos  in  the  friendly  exchange  of 
arms,  copper  against  gilded,  nine  oxens'  worth  for 
the  value  of  one  hundred.  The  tender  affections  are 
most  freely  exercised,  in  kissing  on  the  side  of  joy,  tears 
on  the  side  of  sorrow,  and  by  none  more  freely  than 
by  the  great  Protagonists,  Achilles  and  Odusseus. 
On  one  important  and  characteristic  subject,  the 
exposure  of  the  person  to  view,  the  men  of  that  time 
had  a  peculiar  and  fastidious  delicacy.  The  self- 
possession  and  self-command  of  every  Greek  are 
perfect.  These  qualities  may  be  traced  even  in 
Theisites.  In  whatever  state  the  Greek  may  be,  he 
IS  never  bewildered  :  his  soul  never  rocks  upon  its 
pedestal.  Only  m  the  Suitors  is  there  a  loss  of  pre- 
sence of  mind  :  and  this  is  by  a  divine  judgment.  Free 
in  taking,  Greeks  are  liberal  in  giving  Greed  rests  as 
a  reproach  upon  the  character  of  Agamemnon,  soli- 
tary in  this  respect.  There  is  little  mercy  to  enemies, 
little  pity,  but  no  cruelty :  life  is  taken  for  cause, 
never  gratuitously  or  in  sport ;  torture  is  unheard  of. 
The  rapacious  and  profligate  Suitors,  exhibit  to  us  the 
lowest  form  of  Achaian  immorality.  Of  the  more 
bitter  and  base  depravities,  whether  in  mstitutions  or 
individuals,  we  do  not  find  a  trace. 

12.  The  Quality  of  Aidos. — The  noblest  of 
all  the  ethical  indications  of  the  poems  is  perhaps 
to  be  found  in  the  notable  and  comprehensive  word 
aidos.  It  refuses  to  be  translated  by  any  single  term 
of  the  English,  or  perhaps  of  any  other  modern  lan- 
guage ;  indeed  I  doubt  whether  it  had  not  abated 
much  of  its  force  in  the  classical  age  of  Greece.  It 
means  shame,  but  never  false  shame  ;  it  means 
honour,  but  never  the  base-born  thing  in  these  last 
times  called /rtj//^d'.     It  mear.s  duty,  but  duty  shaped 


ix.J  POLITY.  Ill 

with  a  peculiar  grace.  It  means  reverence,  and  this 
without  doubt  is  its  chief  element.  It  means  chivalry  ; 
and,  though  this  word  cannot  be  given  as  a  good  tech- 
nical translation,  it  is  perhaps  nearer,  in  pith  and 
marrow,  to  the  Homeric  aidos  than  any  other  word 
we  know.  But  aidos  excels  it,  as  expressing  the 
laculty  of  the  mental  eye  turned  ever  inwards. 
Aidos  is  based  upon  a  true  self-respect,  upon  an  ever- 
living  consciousness  of  the  nature  that  we  bear,  and 
of  the  obligation  that  we  owe  its  laws.  There  is  no 
sin,  that  a  human  being  can  commit,  without  sinning 
against  aidos. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

POLITY. 

I.  Ground   Ideas  of  Achaian   Polity. — The 

polity  of  the  Achaian  time  and  people  was  simple. 
This  may  best  be  signified  by  stating  that  the  word 
law  is  not  found  in  Homer,  but  only  the  word  com- 
mon-right, themis,  or  in  the  plural  tJumistes :  the 
material  lying  in  our  nature,  which  is  gradually  drawn 
iorth  and,  upon  experience,  shaped  into  laws.  But, 
simple  as  were  the  forms  of  the  Homeric  polity,  it 
nevertheless  is  the  department  in  which,  as  to  every 
fundamental  point,  the  Homeric  Greeks  were  mo-t 
advanced.  It  was  pervaded  by  publicity.  It  was 
u'orked  mainly  by  persuasion,  with  force  only  as  the 
last  resort.  It  was  founded  in  reciprocal  duty  and 
leciprocal  benefit.  The  absurd  idea  that  the  nation 
exists  for  the  rulers,  and  not  the  rulers  for  the 
nation,  finds  no  countenance  in  the  Homeric  poems. 
The  ruler  enjoys,  but  he  also  works.  The  com- 
munity obeys  without  any  note  of  servitude,  but  yet 
m  the  spirit  of  a  religious  veneration.     All  the  first 


114  HOMER.  [chap. 

fundamental  lessons  of  political  science  may  be 
learned,  particularly  by  Englishmen,  in  studying  the 
Achaian  politics. 

2.  Its  Religious  Sanction. — This  simple  polity 
is  founded  under  a  sanction  distinctly  divine.  It  is 
Zeus,  who  gives  to  the  ruling  office  the  power  that 
it  enjoys.  His  wrath  descends  upon  the  men  who 
pervert  justice.  We  find  in  Homer  the  idea  expressed, 
so  prominent  in  the  Old  Testament,  that  the  sin  of 
the  ruler  brings  suffering  on  the  country.  This  how- 
ever is  not  accompanied  with  the  fiction  of  passive 
obedience,  or  wdth  exclusion  of  the  community  from 
the  question  who  shall  rule.  In  the  Odyssey,  when  the 
return  of  Odusseus  and  the  slaughter  of  the  Suitors 
are  made  known,  the  people  meet  to  decide  that  very 
question. 

3.  Monarchy  "was  its  Fo-m. — It  is  government 
under  a  single  head,  which,  growing  out  of  the  original 
and  probably  remembered  constitution  of  men  in 
families,  forms  the  rule  of  general  practice  :  though 
we  have  in  the  army  instances  of  a  plurality  of  leaders, 
and  in  some  of  the  cases  there  is  no  indication  of  a  chief 
authority.  The  heads  of  the  most  considerable  commu- 
nities, and  likewise  the  chiefs  peculiarly  distinguished  in 
any  manner,  such  as  Telamonian  Aias,  and  Odusseus, 
appear  in  the  army  as  having  the  place  of  a  king 
(basileus)  ;  and  this  title  is  also  fully  recognised  in  the 
rulers  of  foreign  lands.  The  word  is  used  largely  of 
the  Suitors  in  the  Odyssey,  who  were  probably  upstarts 
in  the  absence  of  the  true  king.  Minor  chiefs  have 
no  special  title,  unless  perhaps  hegetor,  or  in  the 
Army  hegemon.  The  name  oi  aiiax  appears  to  belong 
rather  to  a  class  than  an  office.  The  good  king  is 
mild  and  gentle  as  a  father.  The  vice  mentioned 
as  marking  evil  rulers  is  delivering  crooked  judgments, 
and  thus  putting  force  in  the  place  of  right.  Cor- 
ruption, not  violence,  is  what  appears  to  be  imputed 
to  Agamemnon  as  demoboros.     He  practised  violence 


IX.]  POLITY,  115 

against  Achilles ;  but  the  great  chief  would  have 
resorted  summarily  to  force  in  return,  unless  he  had 
been  restrained  by  a  divine  injunction. 

4.  Functions  of  the  King. — The  king's  office 
was  hereditary,  and  he  held  it  by  primogeniture.  The 
office  had  four  branches,  and  he  also  appears  before  us 
in  a  fifth  capacity,  {a.)  He  already  performs  the  duty 
which  elsewhere,  and  in  Greece  afterwards,  devolved 
upon  the  priest,  of  offering  sacrifice.  For  examples, 
we  have  Nestor  in  Pulos,  Agamemnon  on  the  plain  of 
Troy.  (^.)  He  is  the  general,  and  leads  the  people  to 
war.  The  responsibilities  of  command  are  vividly 
exhibited  in  Agamemnon,  whose  mind  sometimes 
appears  on  the  point  of  giving  way  under  the  pressure, 
and  who  from  this  cause  bursts  into  a  profusion  of 
tears  under  difficulty,  {c.)  He  is  the  judge  :  and  this 
is  the  duty  which  may  be  considered  primary,  for  it  is 
the  one  which  Achilles  describes  as  belonging  to  the 
possession  of  the  skeJ>tro?i,  or  royal  staff,  {d.)  Fourthly, 
he  is  the  Head  of  the  Assembly :  he  summons  and 
presides  in  it,  but  apparently  without  any  other 
defined  power.  Telemachos,  acting  as  king,  is  said  to 
call  the  Ithacan  assembly  {Od.  i.  90),  Achilles  (//.  i. 
54),  apparently  to  procure  t-  e  calling  of  it.  7  he  ruling 
office  had  already  begun  to  gather  incidental  emolu- 
ments. The  king  received,  without  objection,  gifts  from 
traders  for  permission  to  exercise  their  traffic:  so  in  the 
Seventh  I/iad  (470)  and  Seventh  Odyssey  (8-11)  ;  and 
so  in  the  Book  of  Genesis  (xliii.  11).  The  two  talents, 
mentioned  in  the  tiial-scene  on  the  Shield,  were, 
according  to  some,  a  fee  payable  on  the  administration 
of  justice,  and  if  so,  they  are  to  be  reckoned  as  in  the 
nature  of  royal  revenues,  since  we  must  regard  the 
judges  as  his  delegates.  Further,  it  would  seem  that 
he  presided  over,  and  to  a  great  extent  regulated,  the 
division  of  the  booty  in  war.  In  honour  his  position 
v;as  higher  still :  the  titles  Zeus-born  and  Zeus- 
nurtured  appertained  to  his  office. 


Ii6  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

5.  His  Crown -Lands,  and  Duties. — Lastly, 
the  king  is  a  proprietor.  He  holds  a  iemenos^  or  public 
estate.  'I'his  might  be  civil,  or  might  be  given  to 
the  worship  of  a  deity,  and  probably  the  support  of 
his  priest  The  iemenos  of  a  king  appears  on  the 
Shield  of  Achilles ;  and  he  watches  with  pleasure  the 
operations  of  his  reapers.  On  the  other  hand  the 
])roperty,  on  which  Laertes  lives  in  retirem.ent,  is 
called  ogros,  and  not  iemenos ;  it  was  acquired  by 
himself,  seemingly  out  of  his  savings.  Wiih  these 
honours,  and  these  possessions,  the  king  was  expected 
to  exercise  a  large  hospitality.  After  his  fight  with 
Hector,  Aias  repairs  to  the  quarters  of  Agamemnon 
and  to  the  banquet  there,  as  if  it  were  a  matter  of 
right  and  of  course  (vii.  ^t^Z)-  Alkinoos,  when 
Odusseus  arrives  in  Scherie,  is  entertaining  his  brother 
kings.  Some  among  the  friends  of  Odusseus,  as 
well  as  others  his  enemies  perhaps  in  greater  number, 
appear  to  have  feasted  at  his  palace  in  his  absence. 
But  besides  this  tax  upon  his  resources,  a  heavier 
obligation  lay  upon  him;  and  it  is  expressed  in  the 
noble  speech  (//.  xii.  310)  of  Sarpedon  to  his  cousin 
Glaukos  :  ''  Why  have  we  place  and  preference  at 
feasts  ?  why  are  we  looked  upon  as  gods  ?  why  have  we 
that  broad  estate  by  Xanthos?  That  we  may  stand 
in  the  foremost  of  the  Lycian  ranks,  and  court  the 
burning  baitle."  Finally,  to  the  kings  of  Homer 
personal  beauty  is  largely  accorded :  and  they  were 
eminently  refined  in  manners. 

6.  The  Council. — As  around  Zeus  in  the  Olym- 
pian Court,  so  around  Agamemnon  in  the  camp,  there 
was  a  small  body  of  at  least  eight  principal  chieftains, 
also  called  kings,  who  formed  the  Boule,  or  Council. 
These  were  Menelaos,  Nestor,  Odusseus,  Achilles, 
Diomed,  Idomeneus,  Aias  the  Telamonian,  and  Aias 
the  Oilean.  They  bear  the  general  appellation  of 
gcrontes,  ciders,  as  well  as  kings.  The  term  is  official, 
for   some  were  y^r^^  young,   and   only   two   beyond 


i::.]  POLITY.  117 

middle  life.  This  Council,  of  course  without  Achilles, 
is  called  together  by  Agamemnon  m  the  Second ///W, 
after  he  has  at  his  own  discretion  summoned  the 
assembly,  but  before  it  meets,  and  m  order  to  consider 
what  proposition  should  be  made  to  it.  The  chiefs 
meet  again  before  the  solemn  sacrifice  and  Array  ;  and 
again,  in  tlie  ninth  Book,  they  send  the  Embassy  to 
Achilles.  It  was  an  institution  of  peace  as  well  as  of 
war.  In  disorganised  Ithaca  it  does  not,  indeed, 
appear  in  action,  but,  in  the  place  of  assembly,  seats 
were  set  apart  for  it ;  in  his  youth  Odusseus  had  been 
sent  on  a  mission  by  Laertes  and  his  Council ;  and 
Nausicaa  in  Scherie  meets  the  King  Alkinoos  on  his 
way  to  the  Council.  In  this  consultative  and  execu- 
tive body,  discussion  is  quite  free,  and  it  guides  Aga- 
memnon quite  as  much  as  it  is  guided  by  him. 

7.  The  Assembly. — So  far  we  have  dealt  with 
those  of  noble  birth.  It  is  more  remarkable  to  find, 
in  this  early  time,  that  the  people  at  large  met  together 
in  a  place  of  assembly  (agore)  appointed  for  the  pur- 
pose, and  usually  near  the  temples  of  the  gods  and 
the  palace  of  the  king.  When  any  great  and  cardinal 
matter  is  to  be  decided,  the  Assembly  is  called.  In 
the  camp,  we  see  the  political  as  well  as  military 
picture  of  a  nation  :  and  we  find  the  fate  of  the  ex- 
pedition submitted  to  the  mass  of  the  soldiery.  The 
Active  advice  of  Agamemnon  to  return  home  is 
taken  in  good  earnest,  and  all  rush  in  tumultuous  joy 
to  give  it  effect,  when  Odusseus,  by  an  extraordinary 
exercise  of  vigour,  rallies  them,  with  a  word  of  per- 
suasion for  the  chief  men,  and  of  reproof,  not  omit- 
ting a  blow  of  his  staff,  for  the  nosiest  of  the  mob. 
Thersites,  the  blackguard  of  the  army,  renews  the 
idea,  and  is  severely  beaten  by  Odusseus;  but  not 
until  after  he  has  addressed  him  in  a  speech,  probably 
meant  to  feel  the  pulse  of  the  Assembly.  Thersites 
is  thus  put  down,  undoubtedly,  by  force  ;  but  the  act  of 
Odusseus  IS  emphatically  approved  by  the  people.    In 


Ii8  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

the  ninth  Book,  Agamemnon  agam  proposes  the 
abandonment  of  the  enterprise ;  Diomed,  after  a 
pause,  rises  and  condemns  him  outright,  declaring  for 
his  part  that  he  and  Sthenelos  will  fight  to  the  last. 
Of  this,  in  the  teeth  of  Agamemnon,  the  Assembly- 
approve  in  their  usual  manner,  by  acclamation.  The 
real  weight  and  importance  of  the  Assembly  are  made 
clear  in  the  first  Book,  when  Achilles,  instead  of  going 
to  Agamemnon  or  the  chiefs,  chooses  it  as  the  arena 
on  which  to  raise  his  great  controversy  concerning  the 
cause  of  the  Plague.  But  the  Assembly  could  meet 
even  in  times  of  disorder,  and  in  the  absence  of  any 
executive  authority.  Accordingly,  the  people  of 
Ithaca  gathered  spontaneously  upon  finding  that  the 
Suitors,  the  actual  heads  of  society,  were  slaughtered, 
and  that  Odusseus,  after  his  long  absence,  had 
returned.  They  proceed  to  consider  what  part  they 
shall  take  for  the  settlement  of  the  country.  There 
are  no  majorities  and  minoriiies  formally  stated ;  but 
"more  than  half "  determined  to  offer  no  opposition 
to  the  returned  king,  while  the  remainder  resisted 
him;  and,  after  being  worsted,  obtained,  in  con- 
sequence of  a  sign  from  heaven,  terms  of  accommo- 
dation. 

8.  Publicity  and  Persuasion. — It  was  thus  in 
the  light  of  day,  and  with  the  knowledge  of  all,  that 
great  public  affairs  were  carried  on.  This  in  itself  is 
an  indispensable  note  of  freedom,  and  one  of  its  main 
guarantees.  But  the  speeches,  made  in  these  assemblies, 
are  as  full  of  strong  and  serious  reasonmg  as  those 
addressed  to  the  few  members  of  the  Boule,  or  those 
which  pass,  before  five  persons  only,  in  the  barrack 
of  Achilles.  In  this  last  case,  where  we  should  have 
expected  only  a  conversation,  we  have  the  most 
elaborate  of  all  the  Orations  found  m  the  poems. 
But,  in  all  the  three  descriptions  of  debate,  we  have 
an  uniformity  of  tone  and  of  style,  which  of  itself 
would  assure  us  that,  in  the  large  as  well  as  the  small 


IX]  POLITY.  119 

meeting,  there  was  one  and  the  sanne  object  in  view, 
namely,  to  effect  persuasion. 

9.  Oratory  in  Homer. — It  i-, however,  material  to 
consider  the  defined  place  given  by  the  Achaian  Greeks 
to  this  instrument  of  persuasion.  The  art  of  speech 
was  in  truth  at  this  period  what  may  be  termed  their 
only  fine  art ;  and  they  had  carried  it,  at  a  stroke, 
to  its  perfection.  In  this  matter  Homer  is  no  un- 
conscious agent.  In  Scherie  his  Odusseus  describes 
beauty  and  excellence  of  speech  as  the  two  great 
gifts  of  the  gods  ;  but,  with  speech,  inind  is  insepar- 
ably bound  up.  "  In  your  infancy/'  says  Phoinix  to 
Achilles,  "  you  knew  nothing  either  of  battle  or  of  the 
assembly."  And  then  Peleus  appointed  him  to  give 
Achilles  his  proper  equipment  as  a  man,  by  teaching 
him  both  to  be  "  a  speaker  of  speeches,  and  a  per- 
former of  exploits.'"  (//.  ix.  443.)  And  so  in  a  re- 
markable epithet,  reserved  for  these  two  agencies 
alone,  he  recognises  nothing  but  the  battle  and  the 
agore  as  able  to  give  glory  to  a  man  {kudianeira). 

10.  The  Tis,  or  Public  Opinion. — He  has 
completed  our  view  of  this  great  spring  of  political 
life  by  an  ingenious  contrivance,  used  to  show  that  the 
ordinary  Achaian  mind  worked  and  passed  judgment 
upon  all  sorts  of  matters  that  were  presented  to  the 
people  in  mass.  His  agent  is  the  Tis,  or  Somebody  ; 
the  common  thought,  the  embodied  sense,  of  the 
lookers  on.  The  declarations  of  7}>,  introduced  with 
the  formula,  "  But  thus  observed  somebody,  looking 
to  his  neighbour  beside  him,"  are  invariably  brief  and 
pithy,  and  they  are  likewise  always  right.  Where 
there  is  a  common  mterest  of  the  Achaians  and 
Trojans,  the  Tis  appears  as  both  Trojan  and  Achaian. 

There  is  a  lis  of  Olumpos,  and  a  Tis  even  of  the 
dissolute  Suitors,  and  he  speaks  exactly  what,  though 
in  Itself  wrong,  is  apt  from  their  point  of  view.  More- 
over this  case  is  of  interest,  because  it  shows  how 
deeply    Homer    was    imbued    with    the    idea    of    a 

u 


I20  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

common  mind  working  in  every  community,  so  that 
his  men  were  not  stones  or  dolls,  but  men  in  very 
deed. 

11.  Orders  of  Society. — Round  the  king  we  see 
a  landed  aristocracy.  A  middle  class  can  only  be 
said  to  exist  in  a  sense  ill-defined  on  either  side ;  but 
to  it  we  may  refer  bards,  priests,  prophets,  surgeons 
or  healers  of  hurts  (who  approached  as  nearly  to  the 
physician  as  the  surgeon),  and  skilled  artificers,  who, 
like  the  rest,  exercised  a  gift  distinctly  divine.  All 
these  may  be  called  the  deimoergoi\  or  professional 
men,  of  the  time.  Those  who  tended  animals,  and 
tilled  the  soil,  probably  formed  the  bulk  of  the  com- 
munity. There  is  no  evidence  that  slaves  were 
numerous.  A  class  of  i/iefes,  or  hired  workmen,  had 
come  into  existence,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
it  extensive.  Probably  these,  togetiier  with  slaves, 
made  up  the  households  of  the  lords,  and  furnished 
the  needful  strength  for  tillage  and  herding  on  their 
lands.  All  seem  to  have  joined  in  military  service, 
except  the  Priests  and  the  Bards,  from  neither  of 
which  classes  have  we  an  instance. 

12.  Exchanges. — Natural  shrewdness  was  the 
guide  of  the  people  in  the  business  of  exchanges.  They 
had  no  abstract  knowledge  of  political  economy ;  yet 
ihey  had  a  far  better  name  for  it,  oikophclia,  the  busi- 
ness of  increasing  the  house  property,  than  our  very 
misguiding  phrase.  Money  did  not  exist.  The  nearest 
approach  to  it  was  in  the  two  half  talents,  deposited 
"  in  court,"  so  to  speak,  for  the  civil  action  represented 
on  the  Shield.  Oxen  in  some  degree  supplied  a  standard 
of  value ;  bought  slaves  were  estimated  in  them  ;  and 
it  is  curious  to  observe  how  cheap  they  are  stated  to 
have  been  on  the  Plain  of  Troy,  as  we  might  expect, 
compared  with  the  price  in  Ithaca.  Stored  wealth 
consisted  in  the  metals  ;  but  no  store  is  mentioned 
either  of  tin,  or  lead,  or  kuanoSy  which  I  take  to  be 
bronze. 


X.]  TROJAN  AND  A  CHA IAN. 


CHAPTER  X. 

EUROPE   AND   ASIA,   OR   TROJAN    AND   ACHAIAN 

I.  General  Relation. — Troy  appears,  from  the 
genealogy  of  Dardanos,  to  exhibit  a  polity  and  society 
somewhat  older  than  those  of  Greece,  with  no  very 
marked  severance  of  race,  but  with  a  perceptible,  and 
even  in  some  respects  decided,  difterence  of  manners, 
institutions,  and  tendencies.  There  was  a  friendly 
relation  between  the  Dardanid  and  the  Pelopid 
houses :  possibly  this  gave  an  opening  for  the  base 
act  of  Paris.  A  son  of  Anchises  presented  the  mare 
Aithe  to  Agamemnon,  and  probably  lived  under  him 
in  Greece.  The  Karians  of  the  Trojan  army  are  called 
barbarophonoi^  speakers  of  an  outlandish  tongue.  Mix- 
ture of  language  is  stated  to  pervade  that  arm). 
But  the  Trojan  people  are  nowhere  described  as 
barbarous,  or  as  allothivoi,  speakers  of  a  foreign  tongue. 
There  is  no  sign  of  a  very  different  stage  of  arts,  or 
constitution  of  society.  The  main  social  difference 
is  in  the  strict  monogamy  of  the  Greeks  compared 
with  the  polygamy  of  Priam ;  but,  if  this  were  the 
only  case,  it  touches  the  royal  house  only,  and  not  the 
people.  The  general  effect  of  the  Idad  is  to  leave 
an  impression,  that  there  was  no  national  animosity 
between  Greek  and  Trojan.  We  are  told  expressly, 
that  only  by  bribed  agency  did  Paris  avert  a  public 
judgment  or  movement  against  him.  The  chiefs 
exhibit  a  marked  inferiority  to  their  rivals  on  the 
Achaian  side,  but  not  so  the  soldiery.  Had  there 
been  a  broad  ethnical  distinction,  it  would  have  been 
every  way  agreeable  to  the  strong  national  spirit  of 
the  poet  to  declare  it  in  a  decisive  manner.  It  seems 
probable  that,  in  the  same  general  way  in  wiiich  ue 


122  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

apply  the  Pelasgian  name  to  the  popular  mass  in 
Greece,  we  might  also  apply  it  in  Troas.  The 
most  marked  lines  of  difference  between  the  Greeks 
and  the  Trojans  of  Homer  lie  in  the  two  broad  fields 
of  religion  and  polity.  But  these  differences  are 
consistent  with,  and  tend  to  support,  the  views  which 
we  have  derived  from  the  general  evidence  of  the 
poems,  that  the  old  agricultural  settlers  of  the  Greek 
peninsula  learned  polity  in  its  truest  sense  from  the 
Achaians,  and  that  they  had  professed,  before  the 
advent  of  that  race,  a  different  and  lower  variety  of 
religion. 

2.  Difference  in  Religion. — The  difference  of 
religion  betv/een  the  Achaian  army  and  the  people 
whom  they  invaded,  is  indicated  in  the  clearest  manner 
on  the  occasion  of  the  Pact  made  with  a  view  to  peace, 
when  the  Greek  sacrifice  is  offered  to  Zeus,  but,  and 
this  on  the  proposal  of  Menelaos,  that  of  the  Trojans 
to  the  Earth  and  ihe  Sun.  Agamemnon  performs  the 
oftice  of  priest  for  the  two  jointly;  and  lie  invokes 
not  only  the  Sun  and  the  Earth,  but  the  Rivers,  and 
with  these  the  Powers  of  the  Under-world,  who  after 
death  iniiict  punishment  on  the  perjured.  When  we 
analyse  this  invocation,  we  perceive  that,  together 
with  the  address  to  Zeus,  the  appeal  to  the  sub- 
terranean powers  was  entirely  within  the  compass 
of  Greek  ideas,  which  attached  the  utmost  value  to 
the  Oath  as  a  bond  of  society,  both  human  and 
divine.  But  the  rest  is  the  Trojan  share.  The 
Rivers  are  added  to  the  first  suggestion  of  Mene- 
laos in  entire  harmony  with  the  sequel  of  the  poem  ; 
for  the  Scamandros  fights  obstmately  with  Achilles 
on  behalf  of  Troy,  and  calls  his  brother  Smiois  to 
his  aid.  Eos,  another  Nature -power,  is  made  known 
to  us  as  the  bride  of  the  Trojan  prince,  Tithonos  ;  and 
the  Sun  is  reluctant  to  set,  when  he  does  it  at  the  com- 
mand of  Hera,  for  the  purpose  of  bringing  to  its  close 
the  last   day  of  adverse   fortune  to  the  Greeks.     It 


X.]  TROJAN  AND  ACHAIAN.  123 

appears  also  that  the  Trojans  were  in  close  relation  with 
those  other  parts  of  the  Olympian  scheme,  which  I 
have  described  as  Phoenician.  Troy  itself  had  olfended 
Poseidon,  but  he  remained  in  relations  of  peculiar 
amity  with  the  Dardanian  branch,  and  accordmgly  he 
saves  Aineias  from  Achilles.  Aphrodite  is  the  para- 
mour of  Anchises,  and  appears  in  Troy  to  Helen. 
Hephaistos  had  a  priest  in  Troas.  The  employment 
of  Hermes  to  conduct  Priam  to  the  camp,  and  his 
final  revelation  of  himself,  probably  indicate  his  being 
worshipped  in  Troas.  There  is,  indeed,  no  part  of  the 
Olympian  system,  which  we  can  positively  affirm  to 
have  been  excluded  from  the  country ;  still,  there  is 
plainly  a  closeness  of  relation  between  that  region 
and  Nature-worship,  such  as  we  do  not  rind  among 
the  Achaians,  but  have  found  reason  to  ascribe  to 
the  older  and  Pelasgian  inhabitants  of  Greece. 

3.  Difference  in  its  Development.— It  is  pro- 
bable that  wherever  we  find  a  iemcjios,  or  estate  dedi- 
cated to  a  deity,  there  was  a  priest  to  live  upon  it. 
There  is  no  tcmenos  in  Ithaca :  the  mere  grove  {a/sos) 
was  a  different  thing.  There  is  none  in  Greece, 
except  for  Spercheios  and  Demeter,  two  of  the  Nature- 
powers  ;  and  we  have  no  contemporary  Greek  priest. 
In  Troas  we  have  the  temejios  (and  of  course  the 
priest)  of  Zeus  ;  the  priest  of  Apollo  at  Chruse  ;  the 
priest  of  Hephaistos ;  the  priest  {areier,  literally 
pray-er)  of  Scamandros  ;  lastly,  Theano,  the  high-born 
priestess  of  Athene.  Seers  or  prophets  were  common 
to  both  countries.  Against  this  ritual  development, 
so  to  call  it,  in  Troas,  we  may  set  the  rich  imaginative 
development  of  spiritual  existences  above  the  order 
of  Nature-agents,  which  have  been  noticed  in  the 
chapter  on  the  Olympian  scheme.  We  hear  of  no 
statue  in  Greece,  corresponding  to  the  statue  of 
Athene  or  Pergamos  ;    but  this  may  be  accident. 

4.  Its  Application  to  Conduct.  — In  the  duty 
of  sacrifice,  Priam  and  Hector  were  eminently  punctual, 


124  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

and  we  never  hear  of  any  defect  amongst  the  Trojans. 
'I'hey  besought  the  aid  of  Athene ;  but  in  doing  this  they 
never  thought  of  the  unredeemed  wrong  of  the  abduc- 
tion  of  Helen.  Among  the  Achaians,on  the  other  hand, 
when  Calchas  was  asked  whether  Apollo's  wrath  was 
for  lack  of  sacrifice,  the  answer  was,  ''  Neither  prayer 
nor  hecatomb,  but  restitution  is  the  one  thing  needful." 
The  Greeks  are  comparatively  neglectful  in  the  matter. 
There  are  three  great  cases  of  omission  recorded ;  that 
of  Menelaoi  in  Kgypt,  and  those  of  the  Army  before 
constructing  the  rampart,  and  before  undertaking  the 
final  return.  But,  if  we  look  to  relative  morality,  it  is 
rather  with  the  Greeks.  Plainly  so  in  the  main  cause 
of  quarrel.  Indeed,  we  can  hardly  conceive  such  an 
act  as  that  of  Paris  done  by  one  of  the  Achaians. 
'Ihe  same  may  be  said  of  the  perjury  of  Pandareos, 
which  breaks  the  truce,  and  again  lets  loose  the  war. 
There  was  a  base  plot  to  slay  Menelaos  when  he 
came,  before  the  war,  to  reclaim  his  wife.  Euphorbos 
wounded  Patroclos  m  the  back.  No  similar  acts  are 
recorded  on  the  Greek  sid-'.  The  polygamy  of  Priam 
is  another  unfavourable  note.  Even  the  best  of  the 
'J'rojan  characters  have  broad  veins  of  weakness. 

5^  Differences  in  Polity. — The  i:uccession. 
— Externally,  the  form  of  polity  is  the  same.  We  see 
a  King,  a  Council  or  company  of  the  old,  and  an 
Assembly  of  the  people,  meeting  by  the  doors  of  the 
royal  palace.  But  we  may  perceive  a  real  difference 
in  the  spirit  and  movement  of  these  institutions. 
Hector  is  the  working  sovereign,  while  Priam  retains 
the  dignity.  We  may  perhaps  contrast  this  arrange- 
ment with  the  case  of  Laertes.  Again,  was  Hector  the 
eldest  son?  In  Greece  we  find  maintained  the  birth- 
right of  the  first-born ;  though  the  case  of  Menelaos 
would  seem  to  show  that  it  had  not  the  exaggerated 
form,  in  which  no  share  is  left  to  the  younger.  But 
polygamy  is  very  adverse  to  the  rule  of  hereditary  suc- 
cession.    Achilles  taunts  Aineias  with  being  a  candi- 


X.]  TROJAN  AND  ACHAIAK.  125 

date  for  the  throne  of  Troy  after  the  death  of  Priam. 
Again,  it  is  remarkable  that  Hector's  son  was  called 
Astuanax,  not,  as  might  be  supposed,  by  his  father's 
birthright,  but  because  Hector  was  the  best  champion 
of  the  city.  Again,  Paris  is  called  by  the  supreme 
name  of  Basikus,  which  is  never  given  to  Hector. 
I'hough  an  indifferent  combatant, who  does  nothing  but 
with  the  bow,  he  takes  the  next  rank  to  Hector  in  the 
field,  and  commands  the  second  division.  Although  in 
character  contemptible,  he  is  the  only  prince,  besides 
Hector,  who  has  a  palace  of  his  own.  Again,  the" 
word  Jiehe,  which  means  early  rather  than  advanced 
manhood,  is  applied  to  Hector ;  but  not  to  Paris,  who, 
according  to  the  po-^ms,  had  carried  off  Helen  nearly 
twenty,  or  at  least  very  many,  years  before.  Hector 
is  called  young  in  the  lament  of  Andromache,  whose 
grandfather  had  been  alive  during  the  war  ;  no  such 
indication  occurs  as  to  Paris,  though  he  is  of  a 
splendid  presence.  It  is  probable,  then,  on  the  whole, 
that  Paris  was  the  senior,  and  that  the  rule  of 
succession  was  somewhat  variable. 

6.  Council  and  Assembly. — Among  the  Achai- 
ans,  the  forms  of  their  institutions  had  become,  in  some 
degree,  definite.  In  Troas  they  were  much  otherwise. 
The  Trojan  elders  hung  round  Priam  with  the  title  of 
dcinogerontes ;  but  we  have  no  proof  of  their  regular 
action  or  debate  as  a  Council.  'I  he  Achaian  assem- 
blies were  m  general  regularly  summoned  by  the 
heralds,  and  there  was  a  separate  place  for  the  elders. 
We  cannot  trace  these  arrangements  in  Troy.  Indeed 
we  are  told  that  they  met  all  together,  young  and  oki. 
Their  assemblies  have  the  air  of  a  chance  gathermg 
(agorasagoreuoii,  IL  n.  788).  They  seem  to  have  been 
more  unruly  (vii.  346).  The  speeches  are  shorter,  and 
are  announcements  rather  than  reasonings.  The 
Assembly  dealt  with  business  as  in  Greece  :  but  not 
with  the  same  deliberation.  When  Pouludamas  spoke 
in  a  way  Hector   did  not  like,  he  was  wont  to  reply 


126  HOMER,  [CHAP. 

that  a  stranger  ought  not  to  disturb  the  public  mind. 
The  restoration  of  Helen  had  been  debated  in 
assembly.  But  the  mental  process  was  not  the 
same,  and  Homer  marks  the  difference  in  the  very 
form  of  assent.  The  Achaians  unanimously  shouted  it 
{cpiac/ioji).  The  Trojans  tumultuously  clattered  it  {kela- 
desan).  At  the  burial  of  their  dead,  both  armies  were 
silent ;  the  Achaians  spontaneously,  the  Trojans  be- 
cause Priam  forbade  a  noise.  The  Achaians  marched 
in  silence,  too,  to  battle  ;  but  the  Trojans  with  a  loud 
buzz.  A  finer  sense,  a  higher  intelHgence,  a  firmer 
and  more  masculine  tissue  of  character,  were  the  basis 
of  distinctions  in  polity,  which  were  then  Achaian 
and  Trojan  only,  but  have  since,  through  long  ages 
of  history,  been  m  no  small  measure  European  and 
Asiatic  respectively. 

7.  Partiality  of  the  Witness. — It  is  true  that 
Homer  may  have  been  biased  by  his  intense  nationality, 
so  as  to  do  the  Trojans  less  than  justice  ;  and  that  a 
poet  of  their  own  might  have  given  a  different  com- 
plexion to  the  picture  as  well  as  the  tale  of  Troy.  But, 
if  we  assume  the  historic  basis  in  the  abduction  of 
Helen,  much  of  the  rest  follows  in  natural  sequel : 
and  many  of  the  traits  which  have  been  noticed, 
minute  separately,  and  only  important  when  combined, 
have  all  the  appearance  of  having  been  touches  given 
naturally  and  accurately  to  the  painting,  without  any 
malicious  intention  to  disparage. 


XI.]  CHARACTERS.  127 


CHAPTER  XI. 

CHARACTERS. 

1.  Plan  of  the  Chapter. — A  full  account  of  the 
Homeric  characters  would  furnish  the  material  of  a 
separate  treatise.  They  supply,  too,  for  the  self- 
prompted  observation  of  conmiencing  students,  one 
of  the  most  appropriate  fields.  On  both  grounds,  I 
shall  attempt  in  this  limited  work  no  exhaustive  survey, 
but  shall  attempt,  after  a  few  general  observations,  to 
deal  with  a  very  few,  especially  with  the  two  Prota- 
gonists, Achilles  and  Odusseus.  I  may  refer  here  to 
what  will  presently  be  said  (Chapter  xiii.)  on  the 
differences  between  those  of  the  characters  who  fall 
generally  into  the  same  category.  Mure,  in  his 
History  of  Greek  Literature^  has  been  very  happy 
in  dealing  with  some  of  those  which  he  has  touched. 

2.  General  Manner  of  Treatment. — In  cha- 
racters. Homer  never  repeats  himself  No  two  per- 
sonages of  the  poem^  offer  to  us  the  same  figure 
under  the  dress  of  an  altered  name.  This  is  true, 
and  it  is  rather  peculiar  to  the  poet,  of  classes  of 
characters.  The  Greek  characters  of  the  Odyssey 
have  a  different  tone  from  those  of  the  Iliad:  we 
view  them  as  if  through  another  atmosphere.  In 
the  same  way,  the  Greek  characters  of  the  Iliad 
have  a  different  tone  from  the  Trojans.  The  same 
is  true  of  the  Lycian  cousins  as  compared  not  only 
with  the  Trojans,  but  with  the  Greeks,  to  whose 
model  they  fundamentally  conform.  They  have  a 
shade  of  sadness,  as  of  men  fighting  in  a  cause,  and 
by  the  side  of  comrades,  without  an  entire  sympathy. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  we  take  the  foreign  characters 
of  the  Outer  Zone,  Kirke  and  Kalupso,  the  Laistru- 
gones  and  the   Kuklopes,  we  do  not  find  the  same 

9* 


128  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

incisive  hind  ling.  The  traits  are  more  generalised. 
The  poet  is  dealing  not  with  what  he  has  seen,  but 
with  what  he  knows  only  by  report.  When  he  gets 
back  to  the  border-land  of  Scherie,  he  is  more  at 
home  ;  he  draws  upon  a  background  supplied  by  the 
Phoenician  element  in  Greece,  which  seems  not  to 
have  lost  all  its  distinctive  marks.  Besides  having 
variety  and  originality^  Homer's  characters  are  true 
in  a  peculiar  degree— (<7)  probably  because  he  is 
describing  an  age  he  personally  knew;  {I))  because 
certainly  that  age  is  more  truthful,  both  in  its  evil 
and  its  good,  than  the  gradual  elaboration  of  modern 
manners  and  society  permits.  While  it  knew  largely 
of  self-respect,  it  hardly  knew  at  all  of  self-conscious- 
ness. There  is  no  word  in  Homer  meaning  mere 
shyness.  What  is  right  and  what  is  wrong  is  stated  with 
the  same  iidivete.  Perhaps  the  highest  of  all  the  titles 
of  Homer  to  a  superlative  excellence  in  the  drawing 
of  characters  is  to  be  found  in  the  inability  of  the 
after-poets  to  maintam  them  at  the  level  on  which 
he  had  placed  them.  The  Achilles,  the  Odusseus, 
the  Helen,  in  later  hands  are  no  more  than  com- 
paratively feeble,  yet  gross,  caricatures  of  the  great 
originals. 

3.  Intensity  of  Achilles. — The  character  of 
Achilles  has  for  its  most  marked  characteristics 
grandeur  and  intensity.  It  is  colossal  in  scale,  and 
ranges  in  some  respects  over  a  wider  compass  than 
that  of  any  other  hero  of  poetry  or  romance.  Yet 
with  all  this  its  parts  are  so  accurately  graduated, 
and  so  nicely  interwoven,  that  it  is  in  perfect  keeping 
throughout.  Its  self-government  is  indeed  only  partial. 
But  any  degree  of  self-government  is  a  wonder,  when 
exercised  over  such  volcanic  forces.  It  is  a  con- 
stantly recurring  effort  at  rule  over  a  constandy  re- 
curring rebellion,  beginning  with  an  inward  conflict 
during  the  first  assembly,  and  ending  with  one  in 
the  closing  scene  with  Priam.     Self-command,  always 


XI.]  CHARACTERS.  129 

in  danger,  is  never  wholly  lost ;  and  there  is  a  noble 
contrast  between  the  strain  put  upon  his  strength  to 
suppress  his  own  passion,  and  the  masterful  ease  with 
which  he  prostrates  every  enemy.  But  he  often 
allows  the  tide  of  emotion  to  flow  on,  yet  forbids  it 
to  overflow  its  banks. 

4.  His  Ferocity. — Ferocity  is  an  element  in  his 
character,  but  is  not,  as  has  been  sometimes  sup- 
posed, its  base.  Indulged  against  the  Greeks,  it  is 
an  exaggerated  reaction,  such  as  may  be  found  in 
very  fine  natures,  against  a  foul  mjustice  heightened 
with  a  number  of  surrounding  aggravations.  Indulged 
against  Hector,  it  is  the  counterpart  of  his  profound 
inconsolable  aftection  for  the  dead  Patroclos.  In  liis 
overbearing  wrath  he  utters  the  wish,  *'  Would  I  could 
bring  myself  to  devour  thee  !  "  and  after  his  death 
he  drags  him  thrice  round  the  tomb  of  Patroclos  ; 
but  the  mangling  of  his  body,  when  he  has  fallen,  is 
left  to  the  common  soldiery. 

5.  Largeness  of  Range. — The  scope  of  this 
character  is  like  the  sweep  of  an  organ  over  the  whole 
gamut,  from  the  lowest  bass  to  the  highest  treble,  with 
every  diversity  of  tone  and  force  as  well  as  pitch. 
From  the  fury  of  the  first  assembly,  he  calms  down  to 
receive  with  graceful  courtesy  the  pursuivants  who 
fetch  Briseis.  Before  the  stern  excitement  of  the 
debate  with  the  Envoys,  he  has  been  enjoying  the 
gentle  pleasure  of  the  lyre,  and  chanting  the  deeds  of 
lieroes.  From  his  rage  against  Hector,  he  passes  to 
tears  with  Priam.  When  the  heaven-sent  arms  clash 
on  the  floor  of  his  barrack,  he  kindles  into  fierce  joy  ; 
but  the  hero  did  not  disdain  to  deck  himself  with 
gold  ornaments  of  Nastes  the  Karian,  which  in  him 
suggest  effeminacy,  but  in  Achilles  seem  only  a 
tribute  to  the  magnificence  of  his  manhood.  Marked 
as  are  these  contrasts,  they  are  thoroughly  harmonised, 
not  simply  by  art  in  the  transition,  but  by  the  largeness 
of  the  scale. 


I30  HOMER.  [chap. 

6.  Odusseus  compared  with  Achilles. — Since 
Achilles  seems  everywhere  to  tread  upon  the  bounds 
of  the  preterhuman,  it  might  seem  impossible  to  pro- 
duce another  Protagonist,  who  must  as  such  be  more 
or  less  his  rival.  But  the  Odusseus  is  limned  with  such 
incomparable  art,  that  at  no  one  point  does  he  appear 
like  an  inferior  Achilles.  Achilles  always,  Odusseas 
never,  touches  on  the  superhuman.  He  is  always 
thoroughly  human.  Colossal  grandeur  is  the  basis  of  tne 
one  character  :  a  boundless  diversity  and  many-sided- 
ness, is  the  spell  that  gives  the  other  its  fascinating 
power.  The  adjective /t?/^7y,  many  or  manifold,  is  the 
basis  of  nearly  all  the  characteristic  words  appropriated 
to  Odusseus  :  it  is  curious  that  no  single  epithet  con- 
taining that  word  is  ever  applied  to  Achilles.  The 
variety  of  Achilles  was  in  a  magnificent  and  profuse 
display  of  gifts,  whether  of  taste,  fancy,  intellect  or 
emotion.  In  Odusseus  an  equally  powerful  and  more 
versatile  intellect  works  with  the  strictest  reference 
to  a  practical  end,  and  works  in  the  precise  way  best 
fitted  to  attain  it.  The  splendour  of  the  reply  of 
Achilles  to  the  Envoys  could  not  be  meant  to  con- 
vert them  :  the  stinging  and  compressed  oration  of 
Odusseus  in  Scherie  (viii.  165),  so  marvellous  in  force 
and  so  exact  in  justice,  utterly  extinguishes  his  adver- 
sary, who  afterwards  makes  his  apology  and  reparation. 
The  vast  power  of  Achilles  runs  to  waste  in  punishing 
his  countrymen,  by  his  withdrawal,  for  a  sin,  which  at 
worst  they  only  tolerated.  The  power  of  Odusseus 
never  runs  to  waste,  never  fails  to  reach  its  mark. 
Largeness  of  range  marks  each  alike  ;  but  while 
Achilles  exults  in  arms  and  in  ornaments,  Odusseus 
unites  to  the  highest  qualities  of  a  statesman  and  a 
warrior  not  only  extraordinary  excellence  in  the  race, 
the  quoit,  the  boxing  and  the  wrestling-match,  but  he 
is  ready  to  mow,  or  to  plough  a  field,  against  a  leader 
of  the  Suitors.  The  character  of  Achilles  is  rich  as  a 
museum;  that  of  Odusseus  as  a  toolshop.      1  "here  are 


XI.  J  CHAR  A  C  TERS.  1 3 1 

contrasts  at  every  point  between  Achilles  and  Odusseus. 
Perhaps  it  is  to  mark  such  a  contrast  that  Homer  has 
made  Odusseus  shorter  in  stature  than  the  average. 
Yet  it  will  be  found  not  only  that  they  have  a  common 
basis  of  character  in  manhood,  intellect,  and  common 
tone,  but  that  neither  of  them  is  ashamed  of  tender 
emotion  in  its  proper  place  ;  they  weep  as  freely  as 
they  think  loftily  and  fight  bravely. 

7  His  Personal  Qualities. — The  subject  of  the 
OJyssey  gives  Homei  the  opportunity  of  setting  forth 
the  domestic  character  of  Odusseus,  in  his  profound 
attachment  to  wife,  child,  and  home,  in  such  a  way  as 
to  adorn  not  only  the  hero,  but  his  age  and  race.  To 
personal  beauty  he  does  not  lay  a  special  claim,  and  he 
is  denounced  by  Poluphemos  as  a  poor  creature  to 
look  at ;  but,  when  he  sate,  he  was  more  majestic  than 
Menelaos.  A  combination  of  daring  with  prudence, 
with  an  infinite  diversity  of  application,  forms  the  staple 
of  his  action.  Bat  Homer  is  the  master,  not  the  slave, 
of  his  own  ideas,  axid  does  not  exhibit  them  in  a 
pedantic,  unreal  uniformity.  The  Greek,  in  general, 
not  excluding  Achilles,  was  with  him  what  we  term  "  a 
man  of  business."'  Odusseus  was  a  little  more.  His 
prudence,  so  commended  by  Athene,  leans  towards 
craft,  though  not  so  as  to  impair  his  general  integrity 
of  aim.  It  is  also  once  disturbed  by  curiosity,  when 
he  insists  on  remaining  in  the  cave  of  Poluphemos  to 
see  what  happens  ;  once  even  by  foolhardiness,  when, 
after  re-embarking,  he  exasperates  the  monster  with 
his  pungent  addresses.  There  is  here  undoubtedly  a 
fault,  yet  it  is  not  all  fault :  it  is  also  the  irresisWblc 
aspiration  of  genius  to  measure  itself  with  danger,  and 
to  plunge  boldly  into  the  unknown. 

8.  Female  Characters  :  Nausicaa  and 
Penelope.  —  Among  the  feminine  characters  of 
Homer,  passing  by  Andromache,  the  model 

"Of  perfect  wifehood  find  pnr^  wom^nhool," 
12 


132  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

there  are  three,  which  display  beyond  the  rest  the 
supreme  skill  of  the  master :  Penelope,  Nausicaa, 
and  Helen.  It  may  almost  be  questioned  whether  any- 
where m  literature  there  is  to  be  found  a  conception 
of  the  maiden  so  perfect  as  Nausicaa  in  grace,  tender- 
ness, and  delicacy.  The  sense  and  tact,  which  are 
combined  with  them,  are  as  practical  as  those  of  any 
man.  I  think  that  modern  genius,  which  has  effected 
a  like  union  in  Portia,  has  not  perhaps  exhibited  so 
consummate  a  harmony  of  what,  as  human  nature  is 
constituted,  are  more  or  less  rival  qualities.  Penelope 
is  scarcely  a  less  formidable  competitress  with  all 
later  attempts  to  delineate  the  queenly  matron.  The 
grace,  which  m  Nausicaa  was  so  young  and  tender, 
has  in  Penelope  blossomed  into  a  perfect  dignity. 
Within  the  rich  circle  of  her  endowments  as  a  woman, 
her  great  intellect  has  been  constituted  on  the  scale 
of  an  Elizabeth,  not  without  reference  to  the  com- 
panionship essential  for  such  a  husband.  Transplant 
that  intellect  into  the  nature  of  a  man,  and  it  might 
develop  into  another  Odusseus.  But  where  it  is, 
it  lies  in  the  same  harmony  with  the  fully-developed 
woman,  as  the  young  powers  of  Nausicaa  with  her 
maiden  freshness. 

9.  Helen. — Lastly,  I  come  to  Helen.  There  are 
more  powerful  pictures  in  Homer;  Penelope  is  one 
of  them  \  but  there  is  none  more  noteworthy,  none 
that  presents  bolder  combinations.  Her  story  is  not 
fully  told.  But  v/e  are  obliged  by  it  to  suppose,  that 
her  great  calamity  was  also,  in  some  not  exactly  mea- 
sured degree,  her  guilt.  She  is  not,  like  those  we 
have  last  had  in  view,  an  ideal  object ;  but  a  mixed 
portraiture.  Her  original  offence  is  not  aggravated 
by  her  apparent  transfer  to  Deiphobos  after  the  death 
of  Paris :  even  Penelope  had  such  a  transfer  to 
expect,  and  could  only  delay  it  to  the  uttermost.  But 
she  came  down  to  the  Horse,  and  imitated  the  voice 
of  Argive  women  she  had  formerly  known  3  ostensibly, 


XI.]  CHARACTERS.  133 

though  the  stratagem  was  strangely  shallo'.v,  to  draw 
forth  tlie  husbands  suspected  to  be  within.  Here 
again  the  suggestion  is,  that  she  had  weakly  yielded  to 
pressure;  for,  we  are  told,  Deiphobos  was  behind  her 
as  she  went.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  irrational  to 
regard  her  as  a  type  of  a  depraved  character.  The 
original  act  is  described  not  as  a  flight,  but  as  an 
abduction,  from  her  husband.  Though  the  occasion 
of  so  much  woe  to  the  Trojans,  and  carped  at  by  some 
ot  the  family  of  Priam,  she  was  ever  treated  tenderly 
by  Hector.  She  regards  Aphrodite  with  horror,  and 
Paris  with  scarcely  concealed  aversion  and  contempt. 
She  is  spoken  of  in  the  poems  generally,  by  all  persons, 
without  disrespect.  In  the  Odyssey  she  reappears 
full  of  queenly  dignity,  and  perfectly  restored  to  the 
love  and  confidence  of  Menelaos,  though  the  gods 
mark  her  offence  by  giving  her  no  children  to  add 
to  the  beautiful  Herrnione.  With  '•  beauty  such  as 
never  woman  wore,"  and  with  the  infirmity  of  purpose 
which  chequered  her  career,  she  unites  not  only 
grace  and  kindliness,  but  a  deep  humility,  and  a 
peculiar  self-condemnation,  which  come  nearer  to  the 
grace  of  Christian  repentance  than  anything,  in  my 
knowledge,  that  has  come  down  to  us  with  the 
ancient  learning. 

10.  Other  Characters. — Very  many  other  charac- 
ters will  repay  a  careful  study  :  the  politic  valour  of 
Agamemnon  ;  the  modest  valour  of  Menelaos ;  the 
brilliant  valour  of  Diomed ;  the  sturdy  valour  of  the 
greater  Aias.  But  Agamemnon,  though  strong  in 
policy,  is  the  least  Achaian  of  all  the  chieftains : 
tainted  with  selfishness  and  greed  of  gain,  and  with- 
out the  bravery  in  council,  which  he  shows  on  the 
field.  On  the  Trojan  side,  Hector  has  been  unduly 
exalted  by  Roman  favour ;  and  the  error  was  of  neces- 
sity repeated  by  Italian  writers  in  the  middle  ages. 
In  the  Iliad  he  compares  pooily  with  Sarpedon  and 
Glaukos,  but  very  advantageously  with  the  worthless 


134  HOMER.  [chap. 

Paris.  His  courage  is  far  from  perfect,  and  there 
are  in  him  veins  both  of  vainglory  and  of  rashness.  But 
he  is  pious  towards  the  gods,  affectionate  and  beloved 
in  his  domestic  relations,  a  laborious  and  unselfish 
patriot,  laden  perhaps  with  more  responsibiUty  than 
he  well  can  bear.  At  the  latest  moment,  driven  to 
bay,  he  recovers  a  perfect  manhood,  and  dies  the 
hero's  death. 


CHAPTER  XH. 

ART,    AND    THE    ARTS. 

I.  State  of  Art  in  Greece.— Fine  art,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  the  arts  in  general,  is  known  to  Homer, 
but  hardly  as  practised  by  the  Greeks.  They  used 
articles  of  bronze,  but  we  never  hear  of  tin  as  a  com- 
modity among  them.  They  fused  metal  into  moulds, 
but  there  is  no  trace  of  their  mixing  metals  together. 
The  gold- worker  (ir//;7/j'^r//^^i')  was  a  gold-beater;  his 
tools  were  the  anvil,  the  hammer,  and  the  pincers ;  and 
his  work  in  that  capacity  was,  to  plate  a  portion  of 
gold  on  the  horns  of  an  animal  for  sacrifice.  But  in 
the  performance  of  this  very  work  he  is  also  called  the 
chalkens,  or  copper-smith  ;  and  the  gold  was  supplied  to 
him  by  Nestor,  so  that  even  this  simple  operation 
would  seem  not  to  have  implied  a  regular  trade.  The 
practice  is  carried  a  little  further  in  a  simile,  where  we 
are  told  of  the  rare  artificer,  instructed  by  Hephaistos 
and  Athene,  who  plates  gold  upon  silver,  and  so  pro- 
duces beautiful  works.  This  probably  represents  the 
summit  of  Greek  contemporary  art ;  but  it  will  be 
observed  that  it  includes  no  reproduction  by  imitation 
from  nature,  either  vegetable  or  animal.  No  worker 
m  metals  is  mentioned  among  the  professional  classes 
in  the  Seventeenth  Odyssey.     Iron  was  scarce ,  it  was 


XII.]  ART,  AND  THE  ARTS.  135 

carried  past  Ithaca,  from  what  point  we  know  not, 
to  exchange  for  copper.  Homer  was  acquainted  witli 
the  practice  of  hardening  it,  in  the  axe  or  adze,  by 
plunging  it,  when  hot,  into  cold  water.  From  the 
purposes  to  which  copper  was  applied,  there  must 
also  have  been  the  means  of  hardening  this  metal ; 
but  they  are  not  specified.  Of  anything  like  Art, 
except  in  metal,  the  poems  give  no  sign.  A  statue 
of  Athene  appears  to  be  implied  by  //.  vi.  303 ;  but, 
had  it  been  a  work  of  art,  it  would  have  been  more 
distinctly  noticed.  It  was  probably  wooden.  There 
is  no  mention  of  art-work  in  stone ;  but  stone  pillars 
are  erected  over  graves  ;  once  ivory  is  wrought. 

2.  The  Shield  of  Achilles  —'Ihe  chief  and 
most  splendid  work  of  art  in  the  poems  is  the  Shield 
of  Achilles.  It  is  so  large  and  elaborate  a  production, 
and  the  power  of  the  poet  has  been  so  freely  spent  in 
giving  expression  to  its  excellence,  that  it  may  be  said  to 
stand  in  some  degree  of  contrast,  as  v/ell  as  comparison, 
with  the  other  products  of  art.  Some,  therefore,  have 
thought  this  magnificent  conception  the  fruit  of  a  later 
age.  Others,  conceiving  that  Homer  must  have  seen 
something  of  the  kind,  bring  down  his  date  to  the 
period  of  the  largely-figured  shields,  which  explorers 
have  discovered.  But  why  may  not  the  poet  com- 
pound as  well  as  the  artist  ?  Why  should  not  Homer, 
by  combining  particulars  which  he  had  seen  in  sever- 
ance, have  supplied  a  groundwork  for  these  very 
shields,  as  some  of  Dante's  descriptions  of  super- 
natural scenes  are  known  to  have  provided  them  for 
the  mediaeval  painters?  The  arms  of  Agamemnon 
carried  serpents  in  relief,  with  figures  of  Gorgo,  Fear, 
and  Panic.  The  compartment  of  the  dance  on  the 
great  Shield  was  like  a  work  that  Daidaloshad  wrought 
for  Ariadne ;  showing  that  the  poet  had  heard  of  or 
seen  some  such  work.  A  signet  ring  of  prehistoric 
antiquity  has  been  found  by  Schliemann  at  Mukenai, 
which  has  signs  of  a  combination  very  like  that  of  the 


136  HOMER.  [chap, 

first  and  most  remarkable  compartm'ent  on  the  Shield. 
This  Shield  is  the  work  of  a  god  :  it  therefore  repre- 
sents the  snmmit  of  art.  That  god  is  Hephaistos,  a 
deity  secured  for  Greece  only  by  the  mediating  action 
of  Thetis,  and  marked  with  all  the  signs  of  foreign 
and  eastern  ori.o;in. 

3.  Other  Works  of  Art  in  the  Poems. — For, 
as  the  god  Hephaistos  is  notably  linked  to  objects  of 
art  in  the  poems,  so  they  are  frequently  by  name 
associated  with  Sidon,  the  Phoinikes,  and  the  East. 
They  are  numerous  :  I  will  name  a  selection.  The  first 
that  meets  us  is  the  sceptre  of  Agamemnon,  which 
.  was  a  work  of  Hephaistos,  presented  by  him  to  Zeus, 
and  by  Zeus,  through  Hermes,  to  Pelops.  The  baldric 
of  Heracles,  with  its  hunts  and  battles,  stands  very 
high  in  the  poet's  estimation  ;  as  did  the  golden  clasp 
of  the  mantle  of  Odusseus.  In  this  the  dog  is  throttling 
the  fawn,  whose  feet  quiver  in  its  gripe.  Here  we 
have,  in  each  case,  living  objects  from  nature.  In  a 
range  more  purely  ornaniental,  there  is  the  necklace 
of  gold  and  amber,  brought  by  the  Phoinikes.  Ear- 
rings of  gold  were  familiar;  they  have  been  found  in 
numbers  at  Hissarlik.  The  head-dress  of  Andromache 
is  elaborately  described  in  the  Jliad,  Our  translators 
had  been  unable  to  render  the  passage  with  precision  ; 
but  it  has  become  quite  intelHgible  on  being  compared 
with  two  rather  complex  ornaments  of  gold  ^  for  the 
head,  which  Schliemann  discovered  at  the  same  place. 
Ivory  is  stained  for  ornament  by  Maionian  and 
Karian  women.  A  bowl  shaped  m  silver,  the  finest 
in  the  world,  was  the  work  of  the  Sidonians.  Another, 
of  silver  with  a  rim  of  gold,  was  the  work  of  Hephaistos, 
presented  by  the  Sidonian  king.  A  Thracian  sword 
was  "beautiful;"  but  this  may  have  been  only  for  its 
metal.  Agamemnon,  and  he  alone,  had  a  sword  with 
golden  studs,  set  apparently  upon  a  sheath  of  wood. 

^  Mow  at  Soulli  Kensington  Museum  (May,  1878). 


xi:.]  ART,  AND  THE  ARTS.  137 

One  instance  only  occurs  of  a  work  of  art,  which  is 
stated  to  have  been  wrought  in  Greece.  It  is  the 
elaborate  bedstead  the  handiwork  of  Odusseus,  the 
universal  genius,  to  whom  spear,  sword,  bow,  plough, 
and  axe,  with  every  fine  tool,  were  all  alike ;  and 
who  carries  many  marks  of  Phoenician  connection. 
Utility,  in  the  sense  of  purpose,  is  associated  with 
all  the  Homeric  works  that  have  beauty  of  design. 

4.  The  Useful  Arts. — When,  therefore,  we  speak 
of  the  useful  arts  in  Homer,  we  mean  those  in  regard 
in  which  beauty  is  not  prominent,  or  specifically  men- 
tioned. Among  these  useful  arts,  the  great  art  was 
agriculture,  with  its  ploughmen,  sowers,  reapers ;  its 
cowherds,  goatherds,  sheepherds,  swineherds.  There 
are  no  grooms  :  the  care  of  the  horse  would  seem — 
while  even  Hera  does  not  disdain  to  handle  the 
animal  in  Olumpos — to  have  been  reserved  on  earth 
for  a  higher  order;  even  for  princesses,  like  Andro- 
mache. There  are  some  signs  of  advance  in  the 
Homeric  agriculture.  We  have  the  profession  of  the 
ochetegos,  the  drainer  or  channel-digger,  already  named. 
Mules  had  begun  to  be  substituted  for  oxen,  and  were 
thought  by  the  poet  preferable.  The  woodman's  art 
was  knovn  and  esteemed;  for,  savs  Homer,  it  is 
by  skill,  not  strength,  that  he  righdy  fells  the  tree. 
Building  in  hewn  stone  is  commonly  a  sign  of  foreign, 
or  as  it  may  be  called  Phoenician,  agency.  The 
waggon  was  known,  and  was  drawn  by  mules  :  there 
was  also  a  waggon  road. 

5.  Instruments  of  War. — The  chariot,  on  the 
other  hand,  an  instrument  of  war,  was  sometmies 
highly  decorated,  and  had  coverings  of  cloth  thrown 
over  it  when  not  in  use.  To  draw  it  was,  we  may 
say,  the  exclusive  work  of  the  horse.  To  mere 
draught  he  was  too  nob'e  to  be  submitted.  Apart 
from  a  single  casual  instance  in  the  Tendi  Iliad,  riding 
(«/\f/r/^eiv)  would  appear  to  have  been  a  rare  and 
smgular  exhibition,  or  the  half-foreign  accomplishment 


138  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

of  the  Kentauroi.  The  defensive  weapons  were  the 
shield,  circular  or  oblong,  and  with  a  belt  for  carrying 
it ;  the  helmet,  the  breast  plate,  and  the  greaves  from 
knee  fo  ancle  :  there  being  no  provision  for  the  upper 
leg,  nor  for  the  back ;  for  how  could  an  Achaian  back 
be  turned  ?  Among  offensive  weapons,  the  bow  was 
little  in  use  with  the  Achaian  army  ;  much  with  the 
Trojans,  who  make  great  play  at  a  distance.  In  this 
there  may  be  something  of  national  pride;  when 
at  home  m  Ithaca,  Homer  exhibits  Odusseus  as  a 
supreme  master  of  the  bow\  And  his  descriptions 
show  how  well  he  Inmself  knew  the  proper  manner  of 
shooting  with  it.  It  is  not  excluded  from  the  funeral 
Games  ;  but  it  is  left  to  secondary  heroes.  The  offen- 
sive weapons  of  the  Greek  warriors  are  the  sword  (with 
its  belt),  the  spear,  the  javelin,  the  axe,  and  the  half- 
axe,  or  axe  with  one  edge  ;  nor  must  the  hurling  of 
large  stones  by  the  most  powerful  heroes  be  left  out 
of  view.  Afachaira,  the  knife  or  dagger,  is  used  not 
in  actual  fight,  but  by  the  surgeon  or  the  sacrificer. 

6.  Works  of  Artisans. — The  potter's  wheel  is 
known  and  appears  (in  a  simile)  on  the  Shield :  but 
he  himself  is  mentioned  only  there,  and  productions 
in  pottery  hardly  appear  in  the  poems.  We  cannot 
infer  that  they  did  not  exist,  or  the  same  inference 
would  hold  as  to  stone  miplements,  of  which  we  have 
I  think  none  portable,  but  only  the  millstone.  I  infer, 
rather,  that  in  neither  kind  did  the  utensils  made 
attain  to  much  beauty  or  high  excellence.  Copper 
utensils,  as  well  as  arms,  prevail :  and  the  copper- 
smith is  a  pretty  familiar  personage.  The  wood- 
worker is  known  both  as  carpenter  and  ship-builder; 
he  has  a  tool  for  boring,  and  he  uses  the  plummet 
to  give  accuracy  to  his  work.  The  house  and  the 
ship,  or  even  the  chariot,  of  Homer,  I  could  not  here 
attempt  to  describe. 

7.  Food. — The  business  of  the  butcher,  and  that 
of   the   cook,    were   absorbed    m    the   office    of  the 


XII.]  ART,  AND  THE  ARTS.  139 

sacrificer  and  his  assistants.  The  preparation  of  bread 
and  cakes  doubtless  fell,  as  well  as  the  grinding  of 
corn  into  flour,  to  women.  Beef  and  mutton  were  freely 
used.  When  we  come  to  large  consumption  of  pork, 
as  in  Ithaca,  or  in  Scherie,  it  seems  to  be  a  note  of 
foreign  connection.  There  is  general  mention  of 
considerable  variety  in  bread  or  vegetable  food  ;  but 
meat  was  all  roasted.  Cheese  was  in  use.  Fish, 
like  birds,  was  little  esteemed  as  an  article  of  food  : 
we  hear,  however,  of  the  fisherman  and  his  net,  as 
well  as  of  the  ferryman  plying  between  Ithaca  and 
Cefalonia. 

8.  Employments  of  Women,  and  House- 
hold Offices. — Women  were  employed  as  house- 
keepers and  as  nurses,  and  they  discharged  most  of 
the  indoor  duties  of  the  household.  Their  standing 
occupation  was  in  spinning  and  weaving  the  material 
of  flax  or  wool  into  garments,  carpets  or  rugs,  cover- 
lets, and  other  bedclothes.  Softness  and  beauty  in 
these  works  are  mentioned :  but  embroidery  com- 
monly stands  in  connection  with  foreign  workers, 
or  foreign  relationship  or  instruction  :  as  does  the 
mention  of  drugs.  Men  are  employed  in  the  office 
of  carving,  and  the  general  conduct  of  the  banquets 
of  the  Suitors  :  but  the  women  begin  their  household 
work  in  the  morning,  about  the  palace  in  Ithaca, 
with  an  air  of  routine  resembling  the  like  operations 
of  the  housemaid  in  our  own  age. 


14©  HOMER.  [CHAP. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

HOMER'S    PLACE    AND    OFFICE    AS    A    POET. 

I.  The  Greek  Mind  and  Work. — The  place 
and  office  of  the  Greeks  in  regard  to  letters,  and  to 
the  culture  of  the  human  mind  throughout  all  time, 
have  been  admirably  described  in  the  opening  section 
of  Mr.  J  ebb's  Primer  of  Greek  Literaitwe.  It  is  quite 
idle  for  modern  theorists  to  suppose  that  we  can  dis- 
pense with  their  aid,  or  shake  off  what  some  would 
call  a  thraldom.  This  could  only  be  done  by  going 
back  to  a  state  which,  whatever  its  equipments  in 
certain  respects,  would  be,  in  essential  points,  one 
nearer  to  barbarism  than  that  which  we  now  hold. 
The  work  of  the  Greeks  has  been  done  once  for  all, 
and  for  all  mankind.  Regarding  more  closely  their 
office  in  the  great  design  of  Providence  for  the  edu- 
cation of  man,  we  may  say  at  large  that  it  was  to 
supply  a  special  school,  in  which  the  whole  intel- 
lect of  the  individual  man  was  to  be  trained.  Their 
literature,  says  Mr.  Jebb,  has  the  unity  not  of  a 
library,  but  of  a  living  body.  It  is  based  in  con- 
fomiity  to  nature,  in  close  mutual  relation  of  parts ;  in 
harmony  between  sound  and  sense,  between  thought 
and  language  ;  in  solidity,  balance,  and  measure.  In 
every  one  of  these  qualities  Homer  led  the  way,  and 
supplied  a  standard  for  his  countrymen  ;  and  it  may 
be  truly  said  that  the  criticisms  and  estimates  formed 
at  other  periods,  which  treat  him  as  limited,  or  fitful, 
or  abounding  more  in  invention  than  in  judgment, 
betray  a  superficial  acquaintance  with  his  text.  Our 
own  age,  less  creative  perhaps  than  some  others, 
possesses  increasingly  the  lower  but  yet  valuable  pre- 
rogative of  a  systematic  and  earnest  criticism;    and 


xiii  ]  HOMER  THE  POET.  141 

hx  more  has  been  done  within  the  last  century  to 
work  the  rich  mine  of  his  poems,  than  in  the  eighteen 
hundred  years  preceding.  Very  much,  however,  yet 
remains  to  reward  the  labourers  of  the  future. 

2.  Homer's  Relation  to  it. — The  qualities  that 
mark  Greek  letters  m  general  are  pre-eminently  found 
m  Homer:  such  as  force,  purpose,  measure,  fitness, 
directness,  clearness,  and  completeness.  To  these  he 
adds  a  richness  and  variety,  a  comprehensive  univer- 
sality, which  is  given  only  to  the  highest  genius.  The 
force,  which  marks  a  full  and  healthy  development  in 
mind  and  body,  is  in  Homer,  as  in  the  Greeks  generally, 
not  thrown  idly  about,  but  addressed  to  an  aim.  The 
thought  is  in  strict  proportion  to  the  subject,  and  the 
language  is  fitted  exactly  to  the  thought  It  goes  to 
its  end  by  the  straightest  road.  The  clearness  of 
Homer  is  unrivalled  m  literature.  The  passages,  in 
which  his  meaning  is  open  to  the  smallest  shade  of 
doubt,  either  as  to  thought  or  language,  might  perhaps 
be  counted  on  the  fingers.  Such  a  clearness  could 
hardly  survive  the  advent  of  philosophy.  It  was  the 
privilege  of  the  childhood  of  the  race,  a  true  though 
an  Herculean  childhood.  Lastly ;  the  assertion  may 
create  greater  surprise  m  some,  but  it  is  true,  that 
Homers  forms  of  expression  are  in  a  very  high  degree 
complete,  as  a  statue  shaped  and  polished  to  the 
finger-nail  was  in  the  Roman  proverb  complete  ;  not 
merely  in  their  mam  outlines,  but  in  refined  and  subtle 
detail.  The  whole  of  these  eminently  Greek  qualities 
may  be  summed  up  in  one  phrase — poetic  truth. 

3.  His  Characteristic  Style. — Besides  his 
general  prerogative  as  an  universal  genius,  and 
besides  the  properties  in  which  Homer  is  followed, 
and  as  it  were  reproduced,  in  his  countrymen,  he  has 
other  particular  gifts  of  liis  own.  For  example,  he  is 
probably  the  most  characteristic  of  all  poets.  Traits 
personal  to  himself  inhere  in  his  whole  Avork,  and 
perpetually  reappear  upon  the  surface.      Sir   Walter 


142  HOMER.  [chap 

Scott  has  admirably  described  the  fine  style  ot  Swiii 
as  the  style  which  puts  the  right  words  in  the  righi 
places.  No  more  just  sentence  could  have  been 
written  on  the  style  of  Homer.  But  the  merit  thus 
described  is  essentially  general.  Homer  has  also  the 
special  quality,  that  all  he  produces  carries  the  maker's 
mark.  JJut  the  maker's  mark,  when  too  prominent, 
constitutes  what  is  called  mannerism.  With  Homer 
the  maker's  mark  never  obtrudes  the  maker,  or  places 
him  between  the  reader  and  the  theme.  It  never  in- 
terferes with  the  aim  and  matter  of  the  poem.  Only 
it  IS  there,  ready  when  wanted.  If  we  look  for  it,  we 
find  it.  V\^e  then  discover  that  in  hmi  what  we  call 
style,  while  he  has  the  simplest  of  all  styles,  is  also, 
setting  aside  the  class  of  mannerists,  perhaps  the 
most  peculiar  to  the  individual.  It  would  be  hardly 
possible  to  quote  five  Hnes  from  him,  which  must  not 
at  once  by  internal  evidence  be  recognised  as  his. 
Even  in  the  smallest  shred  of  the  painting,  the 
painter's  touch  is  seen.  So  that  though  imitated 
often,  in  form  and  in  material,  the  imitations  of  him 
are  known  by  their  trick  and  effort,  not  by  their 
likeness. 

4.  His  suppression  of  Himself. — And  while 
his  coin  in  one  sense  bears  his  image,  Homer,  like 
Shakespeare,  is  remarkable  for  the  suppression  of  him- 
self. The  harmonious  laws  of  his  mind  are  everywhere 
visibly  at  work,  but  the  ego — the  mere  personality 
— is  nowhere  to  be  traced.  The  pronoun  itself  only 
occurs  in  some  few  invocations  to  the  Muse.  In 
the  exordium  of  the  Iliad  he  says  not,  like  Virgil  and 
Tasso,  "  I  sing,"  not  even  "  Teach  me  to  sing  ; "  but 
"Sing,  O  Goddess."  In  the  Odyssey,  "Tell  me, 
O  Muse,  of  the  man ; "  where  the  personal  pronoun 
is  a  mere  grammatical  necessity.  The  only  passage, 
in  which  we  seem  for  a  moment  to  see  the  figure  of 
the  minstrel  is  the  prelude,  in  the  Second  Iliads  to  the 
long  detail  of  the  Greek  Catalogue.     This  Catalogue 


Xiii.]  HOMER  THE  POET.  143 

was  not,  like  the  Poem  at  large,  a  tissue  woven  with 
continuity  of  thought,  but  rather  a  heap  of  details 
without  a  natural  tie.  The  effort  of  memory  was 
arduous.  Hence  the  special  appeal  for  aid  from  the 
inspiring  deities. 

5.  His  Adaptation  of  Sound  to  Sense.— Homer 
is  wonderful  in  his  adaptation  of  sound  to  sense. 
'I'his  is  a  property  of  his  great  rivals,  Shakespeare  and 
Dante.  But  he  had  an  instrument  for  the  purpose 
in  the  Greek  hexameter,  such  as  they  did  not  possess, 
and  such  as  I  take  to  be  perhaps  unrivalled  in  all  the 
world.  The  time  of  each  verse  may  be  termed  uniform, 
and  is  made  up  of  twelve  standard  units  ;  but  there  are 
five  of  these  units  which  may  be  broken  into  halves 
at  will,  with  a  short  syllable  assigned  to  each  half;  so 
that  the  syllables  of  the  verse  may  vary  between 
twelve  and  seventeen.  The  distinction  between  long 
and  short  syllables,  is  thus  the  key  to  the  extraordi- 
nary elasticity  of  his  system.  By  the  addition  of 
syllables  we  lay  more  weight  upon  our  lines  ;  he  takes 
it  away.  There  are  other  subtle  diversities  of  law,  all 
tending  to  enlarge  his  poetic  freedom  :  one  the  variety 
of  ccBSKra,  or  principal  break  of  words  in  the  line,  and 
another  a  sovereign  licence  in  changing  occasionally 
the  form  of  the  word  so  as  to  alter  the  time  (as  from 
Achilles  to  Achties),  or  in  reversing  the  quantity,  as  in 
dia  or  Ares,  "  at  his  own  sweet  will,"  by  a  process  which 
seems  to  belong  to  a  very  early  stage  in  the  life  of  a 
language,  and  by  a  prerogative  which  it  would  not  be 
safe  for  any  but  a  sovereign  poet  to  assume.  The 
general  result  is,  that  he  moves  almost  without  re- 
straint, in  the  full  freedom  of  Nature.  The  clothing 
does  not  confine,  while  it  sets  off,  the  limbs  of  Thought. 
He  varies  incessantly  the  velocity  of  his  movement, 
and  the  weight  of  his  tread,  in  due  proportion  to  the 
subject  he  is  exhibiting.  The  Italian  vocabulary  for 
regulating  a  musical  performance  finds  full  expression 
in  the  method  of  his  verse. 
13 


144  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

6.  Examples  of  this  Adaptation. — By  way  of 

exemplifying  the  operation  of  this  most  elastic  pro- 
sody, I  may  observe  that,  when  he  has  to  describe  the 
rapid  motion  of  the  flying  chariots,  when  the  horse 
Xanthos  has  to  assure  Achilles  that  it  was  by  no  tar- 
diness of  steeds  that  Patroclos  became  a  victim,  or 
when  he  tells  of  the  light  velocity  of  the  mares  that 
had  Boreas  for  their  sire,  the  rapid,  that  is  to  say  the 
short,  syllables  of  each  verse  are  increased  to  eight  and 
even  ten.  Here  the  short  syllables  actually  outnumber 
the  long,  and  the  verse  seems  to  gallop.  When,  on 
the  other  hand,  he  has  to  describe  hard,  heavy  blows, 
or  the  massive  constituents  of  an  abundant  banquet  on 
the  tables,  and  on  two  other  similar  occasions,  he  goes 
so  far  as  to  exclude  short  syllables  altogether  by  what 
are  termed  spondaic  lines.  Virgil,  who  is  certainly 
of  the  greatest  masters  of  versification  in  the  world, 
imitates  this  method  of  Homer's,  but  cannot  match 
him.  Again,  to  learn  how  very  far  it  is  from  easy  to 
make  words  bound,  as  Homer  does,  let  the  reader  turn 
to  Pope,  one  among  our  most  famous  adepts.  It  is 
in  one  among  his  very  best  renderings  of  sound  that  he 
gives  us  the  wind-born  mares  (Po^'s  //.  xx.  ^o) : — 

"  rhe?e  lightly  skimming,  when  they  swept  the  plain, 
Nor  plied  the  gia-s,  nor  bend  the  tender  grain  ; 
And  when  along  the  level  seas  they  flew, 
Scarce  on  the  surface  curled  the  briny  dew." 

But  he  surely  fails  to  convey  the  idea  of  lightness  when 
he  describes,  after  Virgil,  in  a  lengthened  and  loaded 
verse,  the  similar  movement  of  Camilla,  who 

"Skims  the  unbending  corn,  and  flies  along  the  main." 

Again,  when  Iris,  the  ''beautiful  and  swift,''  sets  out 
upon  her  messages,  or  when  the  horse  is  at  full  speed, 
Homer  uses  the  dactylic  line  of  seventeen  syllables. 
This  adaptation  he  carries,  without  violence,  into 
detail.    For  example,  the  speech  of  the  horse  Xanthos 


XIII.]  HOMER   THE  POET,  145 

to  Achilles  is  mournfully  predictive,  and  therefore 
requires  a  fair  share  of  spondees ;  but  when  he  pleads 
that  it  was  through  no  want  of  speed  that  Patroclos 
perished,  he  does  it  in  a  dactylic  line.  When  Achilles 
is  weeping  before  Priam,  two  lines  (xxiv.  511,  512) 
have  together  five  spondees ;  when  he  puts  away  his 
grief  and  rises  up  {513-515),  three  lines  have  only  four. 
With  the  command  he  possessed  over  his  verse,  he 
did  not  need  to  use  the  ignoble  artifice  of  filling  it  with 
unmeaning  words.  His  expressions  seem  to  have 
flowed,  rather  than  fallen,  into  their  places  with  spon- 
taneous ease.  I  doubt  whether  he  knew,  even  as 
much  as  Shakespeare  had  to  know,  what  we  common 
men  mean  by  effort.  Others  besides  Homer  wrote 
in  the  hexameter,  both  Greek  and  Latin,  with  the 
same  laws  ;  but  not  even  Virgil,  a  supreme  master  of 
versification,  has  been  able  to  make  it  do  the  work, 
which  Homer  obtained  from  it  in  the  ever-varying 
adaptation  of  language  to  thought,  of  sound  to  sense. 

7.  Use  of  Particles. — In  another  matter,  Homer 
was  supremely  happy  in  his  instrument ;  for  the  Greek 
tongue  in  his  hands  lent  itself  by  its  particles  to  slight 
and  delicate  shadings  of  the  sense,  which  it  is  ini- 
possible  for  us  to  follow,  since  we  have  no  terms  to 
express  the  fine  touches  they  convey,  without,  at  the 
same  time,  expressing  a  great  deal  more,  and  thus 
deranging  the  artful  balance  both  of  thought  and  of 
expression.  This  is  felt  either  less,  or  not  at  all,  in 
translating  other  Greek  writers  :  but  the  particles  of 
Homer  are  the  despair  of  his  translators.  Periphrasis  is 
found  intolerable  ;  and  there  is  no  refuge  but  omission. 
It  is  remarkable,  that  the  simple  life  of  the  Greeks 
should  have  been  equipped  in  language  with  a  nicety 
that  modern  times  and  tongues  have  lost,  and  likewise 
that  that  nicety  should  have  been  most  fully  developed 
in  the  earliest  and  most  artless  period  of  Greek  letters. 

8.  Use  of  Epithets. — It  is  more  easy  for  us  t  • 
trace  this  exact  and   delicate  modelling  of  thought  in 


146  HOMER,  [CHAP. 

the  use  of  epithtts,  which  is  certainly  one  of  Homer's 
most  marked  peculiarities.  What  shading  does  for  the 
painter,  epithets,  together  with  particles,  appear  to 
effect  for  Homer ;  and  this,  as  to  both,  in  a  greater 
degree  than,  so  far  as  I  know,  for  any  other  author.  1 
doubt  the  opinion  sometimes  held,  that  there  abound 
in  Homer  idle  or  ''otiose  "  epiihets,  which  do  not  add 
to  the  sense.  Take  the  case  of  the  "hollow  ships." 
Certainly,  hoUowness  is  implied  in  the  ship,  as  bright- 
ness is  in  the  fire  or  the  sun.  But  poetry,  especially 
recited  poetry,  and  most  of  all  the  poetry  of  Homer, 
is  a  perpetual  presentation  of  images ;  and  the  epithet 
hollow  assists  to  raise  the  image  for  the  mental  eye  of 
the  hearer.  By  developing  the  sense  intended,  it 
adds  to  the  sense  received. 

9.  For  the  Horse. — Homer  has  a  most  refined 
use  of  epithets,  even  for  animals.  He  employs  nearly 
eighty  for  the  horse :  an  astonishing  number,  many 
of  which,  as  might  be  expected,  express  fire  or  speed. 
But  he  distributes  them  with  a  tiner  discrimination 
than  will  be  readily  observed  elsewhere.  He  never 
applies  to  the  horse  an  epithet  of  rapidity,  or  fire,  en 
occasions  when  the  animal  is  engaged  otherwise  than 
in  rapid,  energetic  movement.  Not  less  than  six  elabo- 
rate passages  might  be  cited  from  which  such  phrases 
are  wholly  excluded  :  among  them  the  descriptions  of 
the  horses  of  Achilles  weeping  upon  the  death  of 
Patroclos,  and  of  the  mares  of  Erichthonios  feeding. 
That  is,  he  avoids  giving  a  general  trait,  which  would 
not  be  in  harmony  with  the  particular  situation. 
When  he  describes  the  animal  generally,  the  epithets 
of  swiftness  reappear  :  as  in  the  cases  of  Eumelos,  li. 
763  ;    Zeus,  viii.  41  ;   Rhesos,  x.  436. 

ID.  For  Men. — So  much  for  animals.  But  the  help, 
refreshment,  and  guidance  to  the  mind,  which  epithets 
can  convey,  and  the  part  they  can  play  in  the  delinea- 
tion of  character,  is  nowhere  to  be  seen  as  it  is  to  be 
minutely  traced   in  the  epithets  of  Homer,  for  all  his 


XIII.]  HOMER  THE  POET.  147 

great  characters,  divine  and  human.  For  example, 
he  only  gives  the  epithet  {t/wasus),  rash,  to  Hector 
when  there  is  something  in  the  actual  situation  that 
brings  out  his  rashness.  Three  times  he  is  admonished, 
in  the  sense  of  caution,  by  the  circumspect  Pouluda- 
mas.  On  these  three  occasions,  the  line  which  in- 
troduces the  speech  notes  him  as  "  the  rash  Hector  "  : 
but  on  these  three  only.  Again,  the  epithets  of 
Momer  are  made  to  do  what  other  poets  have  effected 
by  lengthened  descriptions.  It  may  be  said,  indeed, 
with  nearly  literal  truth,  that  in  Homer  there  are  no 
descriptions  at  all.  The  whole  purpose  of  the  poet  is 
v.TOught  out  in  actions  and  in  speeches.  But  his  epi- 
thets stand  instead  of  descriptions.  By  the  epithets 
given  to  the  Danaan,  Argeian,  and  Achaian  appella- 
tives, we  can  perceive  the  true  meaning  of  the 
names.  We  see  that  he  did  not  think  highly  of 
the  lonians ;  for  he  calls  them  tunic-trailing,  while 
his  Achaians  are  copper-tunicked,  or  mailed.  In 
the  case  of  Odusseus,  especially,  all  the  wealth  and 
resource  of  his  mind  is  peculiarly  expressed  by  epithets. 
In  the  case  of  Achilles,  the  epithets  are  comparatively 
commonplace ;  without  doubt  because  his  character 
is  so  amply  expressed  in  strong  and  vehement 
action.  Homer  pursues  more,  and  far  more  success- 
fully than  any  other  poet,  the  method  of  giving  efficacy 
to  these  epithets  by  exclusive  appropriation.  Among 
those  given  to  Odusseus,  there  are  eight  most  cha- 
racteristic of  his  mind  and  disposition;  they  are  Dii 
meti'i  atalantos,  tkmon,  polumetis,  poluphron^  pchitlas, 
po'utropos,  polwnechanos^  poikilojudis :  not  one  of 
them  is  ever  applied  to  any  other  person.  Two  other 
epithets  he  shares  only  with  his  great  brother-protago- 
nist, Achilles,  among  living  men :  these  are  theios, 
divine,  diwA pfolipori/ios,  city-sacker.  Even  in  his  own 
family,  where  all  are  prudent,  the  distinctions  are 
carefully  maintained.  Xoble  Penelope  is  periphrotu 
the  reflective.   Telemachos  \s pep;tiime;ws^  the  sensible. 


148  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

But  these  epithets  are  never  exchanged ;  neither  the 
wife  nor  the  son  ever  have  any  of  the  characteristic 
epithets  of  the  father,  nor  has  he  theirs. 

II.  Shadings  of  the  Characters. — I  may  now 
proceed  to  bring  towards  a  close  what  I  have  to  say 
on  the  very  refined  quaUties  of  Homer,  by  passing 
from  these  epithets  of  human  character  to  his  more 
general  exhibition  of  its  more  subtle  distinctions.  The 
minute  distinctions  of  character  are  best  seen,  where 
characters  are  apparently  allied.  Thus  the  Trojans, 
taken  generically,  are  not  cowards ;  but  in  the  ground- 
work even  of  Trojan  courage,  in  the  tissue  of  the  mind, 
there  is  a  weakness  that  stands  in  marked  contrast 
to  the  masculine  tone  of  the  Greek.  The  seeming 
exceptions  are,  the  Lycian  Sarpedon  and  his  cousin 
Glaukos ;  but  the  picture  of  the  Lycians  in  Homer 
includes  the  descent  of  these  heroes  from  Bellerophon, 
and  constantly  shows  that  he  regarded  that  people 
as  ethnical  relatives  of  the  Greeks.  Achilles,  Aias, 
Diomed  are  paramount  in  bravery  :  but  endurance 
marks  the  bravery  of  Aias,  as  brilliancy  that  of 
Diomed,  while  Achilles  is  in  all  things  on  the  borders 
of  the  preterhuman.  Of  the  two  it  is  Diomed,  not 
Aias,  who  is  in  some  sort  of  competition  with  Achilles; 
accordingly  it  is  Aias.  not  Diomed,  who  is  sent  as  co- 
envoy  with  Odusseus  in  the  embassy  of  the  ninth 
Book.  Behind  these  three  lie  what  may  be  called  the 
political  courage  of  Agamemnon,  only  put  forth  in 
emergency;  and  the  prudent  courage  of  Odusseus, 
which  is  always  forthcoming  in  exact  proportion  to 
the  occasion,  and  filling  the  place  that  no  other  is 
found  to  fill.  The  wisdom,  again,  of  Nestor  is  amus- 
ingly accompanied  with  self-complacent  reflection ; 
that  of  the  great  Odusseus  is  entirely  spent  upon  its 
end,  and  never  once  in  either  poem,  though  even  he 
cannot  always  repress  the  hardihood  of  curiosity,  does 
he  indulge  in  the  slightest  egoism,  Phoinix  is  of  the 
standing  of  Nestor,  and  has  the  same  retrospective 


XIII  J  HOMER  THE  POET.  149 

habit  of  mind  ;  but  is  effectually  marked  oft  by  this, 
that  his  entire  heart  and  thought  are  in  the  welfare  of 
Achilles.  The  Nestor  of  tne  Odyssey  is  carefully  dif- 
ferenced from  the  Nestor  of  the  Iliad,  yet  in  just 
proportion  to  the  altered  circumstances  of  his  rather 
fidgety  character.  Like  Helen,  without  any  infringe- 
ment of  identity,  he  has  received  an  accession  of 
dignity  and  calm.  There  is  a  great  resemblance 
between  Penelope  and  Andromache,  each  the  normal 
exhibition  of  i\\t  wife  and  mother  under  heavy  strain  : 
but,  again,  it  is  the  Greek  who  wins  the  day  with 
Homer,  for  Penelope  only  of  the  two  has  the  depth 
and  scope,  which  fit  her  to  be  the  soul-sharing  partner 
of  the  great  Odusseus,  and  which  would  have  been 
thrown  away  upon  the  smaller  scale  of  mind  exhibited 
in  Troy.  Again,  Telemachos  is  not,  and  will  not  be 
if  he  grows  for  a  century,  an  Odusseus.  The  prudence 
and  rectitude  are  there,  as  in  the  father's  son  :  but  the 
ready  initiative,  the  prompt  presence  of  mind,  the 
supple  strength,  the  unbending  purpose,  the  rich  re- 
source, are  gone;  and,  while  the  lineage  is  obvious, 
poetry  has  returned  to  prose. 

12.  Sense  of  Beauty ;  Number;  Colour. — 
The  very  keen  perception  of  beauty  in  form,  in  order, 
and  in  movement,  which  is  found  everywhere  in  the 
poems,  conveys  the  idea  that,  in  this  organ  too  Homer 
was,  even  to  an  unusual  degree,  finely  strung.  Even 
where  he  has  to  condemn  its  adjuncts,  he  does  not  fail 
to  pay  It  a  due  homage.  Nireus,  for  his  beauty,  has  a 
splendid  passage  given  him  in  the  Catalogue,  though  it 
winds  up  by  blasting  him  as  a  poor  creature  [alapadnos), 
with  small  following.  To  Euphorbos  on  his  death,  a 
warrior  of  no  marked  distinction,  he  has  devoted  some 
of  his  tenderest  and  most  graceful  lines,  for  no  other 
reason,  as  it  seems,  than  that  he  was  of  remarkable 
beauty.  In  a  few  instances,  we  trace  an  indefiniteness 
of  language,  which  suggests  that  the  faculty  in  him 
had  not  yet  profited  by  the  great  advantage  derivable 


I50  HCMER.  [CHAP. 

by  us  from  what  has  been  termed  of  late  heredity. 
His  idea  of  number,  when  it  becomes  large,  grows,  as 
with  a  child,  very  loose;  hundreds  float  somewhat 
vaguely  before  him  ;  thousands  are  as  billions  or  quad- 
rillions. So,  also,  he  knew  but  little  and  vaguely  of 
the  diflerences  of  colour,  except  as  approximations 
to  the  opposite  ideas  of  light  and  darkness,  both  of 
which  he  grasped  firmly,  and  turned  very  largely  to 
poetic  use.  He  never  gives  an  epithet  of  colour  to  a 
flower;  never  calls  the  skies  blue;  and  there  is  no 
word  in  the  poems  which  would  justify  an  assertion, 
that  he  had  any  approach  to  a  distinct  perception 
either  of  green  or  of  blue.  Yet  so  well  did  he  employ 
his  comparatively  scanty  materials,  that  his  visual 
imagery  is  both  abundant  and  highly  imposing. 

13.  Similes  of  Homer  ;  Rhymes  ;  the 
Pun. — The  developed  similes  of  Homer,  without 
counting  those  more  slightly  stated,  exceed  two 
hundred  and  thirty,  of  which  only  about  forty  are 
in  the  Odyssey.  They  are  employed  to  relieve  the 
action  where  it  flags,  or  where,  as  in  the  details  of  war, 
it  wants  variety.  They  are  therefore  very  unequally 
distributed.  The  first  Book  of  the  Iliad,  where  the 
action  is  very  animated  as  well  as  diversified,  has 
none.  The  sixteenth  and  seventeenth,  where  the 
action  is  wholly  martial,  have  between  them  thirty- 
seven.  They  are  usually  from  three  to  five  lines  in 
length,  and  are  supplied  by  very  varied  observation 
of  the  scenes  of  life  and  the  operations  of  war.  As 
we  pass  from  the  Iliad  to  the  Odyssey^  in  proportion 
to  the  change  of  subject,  similes  from  the  chase  and 
storm,  which  had  been  very  frequent,  become  rare, 
and  domestic  or  still  life  predominates.  The  elements 
of  rhyme  may  also  be  largely  detected  in  the  poems  by 
the  observant  reader :  in  a  few  instances  they  are  so 
prominent — for  example  in  the  two  closing  lines  of 
the  magnificent  description  of  the  Shield  of  Achilles — 
that  they  can  hardly   be  overlooked.      The  lai-ono- 


XIII.]  HOMER  THE  POET.  151 

masia,  or  pun,  if  it  has  no  older  parent,  may  con- 
tentedly claim  the  parentage  of  Homer.  He  has 
given  It  a  marked  sanction  in  the  Oiiiis  of  the  Odyssey, 
and  not  less  than  a  dozen  instances  may  be  found. 

14.  His  Relation  to  Greek  Poetry  in  its 
several  Branches. — Passing  from  these  frag- 
mentary remarks,  I  add  a  few  words  on  Homer's  more 
direct  contributions  to  the  hterature  of  his  country, 
and  indeed  of  the  world.  From  him  has  been  drawn 
the  epic,  which  I  suppose  contests  with  the  drama 
the  title  to  supremacy  amiOng  the  kinds  of  poetry. 
It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  Homer  stands  in  a 
nearer  relation,  than  has  commonly  been  perceived, 
to  the  theatre  of  his  country.  And  this,  not  only  on 
account  of  the  remarkable  degree  in  which  he  con- 
ducts the  action  of  his  poems  through  the  medium  of 
the  speeches.  In  ics  earliest  acknowledged  stage  the 
Greek  drama  shows  us  but  a  single  actor  or  reciter, 
together  with  a  Chorus  chanting  odes  in  honour  of 
Dionusos  :  upon  which  Chorus  there  certainly  de- 
volved the  othce  of  passing  judgments,  according  to 
right  and  truth,  upon  the  action  of  the  piece.  Now 
Homer,  reciting  his  own  poems,  was  himself  an  actor, 
using  a  musical  accompaniment  :  and  he  introduces 
from  time  to  time,  under  the  name  of  rts  (tis),  a  per- 
sonage extrinsic  to  the  action,  who  performs  the  part 
of  a  judicious  observer,  and  is  the  organ,  like  the 
Chorus,  of  a  sound  public  opinion. 

The  poetry  of  Homer  appears  to  have  supplied  the 
basis  of  the  hymns  which  are  untruly  associated  with 
his  name  as  their  composer ;  and  it  is  easy  to  per- 
ceive how  the  elegy  might  find  food  from  nis  laments 
{threitos)  over  the  dead,  and  the  war-song  of  Turtaios 
derive  its  inspiration  from  the  whole  strain  of  the 
Jliad,  In  the  view  of  Aristophanes,  he  seems  to  have 
been  properly  the  poet  of  war.  The  triumphal  hymn 
of  praise,  ot  paiau,  is  commemorated  in  the  Iliad,  a^ 
already  established  in  use. 


152  HOMER.  [CHAP. 

15.  To  Cratory. — There  is  one  noble  branch  of 
Greek  literature,  which  we  cannot  but  refer  markedly  to 
Homer,  namely,  its  political  oratory.  For  the  oratory 
of  argument  and  sarcasm,  we  turn  to  the  embassy  of 
the  Nmth  Iliad  in  the  barrack  of  Achilles :  for  the 
oratory  of  passion  and  withering  invective  to  the  de- 
bate in  the  Assembly  of  the  First  Book,  or  to  the 
wonderful  speech  of  Odusseus  in  reply  to  the  inso- 
lence of  the  Scherian  Prince,  given  in  the  Eighth 
Odyssey.  I  know  not  where  to  find  grander  models ; 
and  I  cannot  think  Achilles  in  any  way  inferior  to 
Demosthenes.  Nor  was  this  a  bye-blow  of  the  poet's 
genius.  We  have  seen  that  the  subject  of  public 
speech  had  a  large  and  well-defined  place  in  his  mind ; 
and  one  of  the  very  {t\N  passages  in  his  poems,  that 
can  be  called  properly  descriptive  (introduced  however 
in  a  speech),  will  be  found  in  the  eight  splendid  lines 
of  the  Third  Iliad  (216-23),  which  celebrate  the 
eloquence  of  Odusseus. 

16.  1  o  History.— Less  direct  than  the  relation 
of  Homer  to  the  oratory  of  Greece,  but  still  suffici- 
ently perceptible,  is  the  manner  in  which  his  poems 
supply  the  first  suggestion  of  the  great  work  of  the 
historians.  Apart  from  the  mere  incidents  of  the  war 
of  Troy,  or  from  whatever  nucleus  of  truth  there  may 
be  in  the  adventures  of  Odusseus,  Homer  is  the 
historian  of  their  age  in  the  picture  he  has  given  us  of 
its  mind,  its  institutions,  and  its  manners.  Nor  does 
it  seem  possible  to  account  for  the  large  number  of 
important  pre-Troic  legends  that  he  has  introduced, 
especially  into  the  Iliad^  upon  any  other  ground  than 
this,  that  the  bard  of  the  heroic  age,  making  use  of 
the  only  vehicle  it  afforded,  worked  with  positive 
historic  aims. 

17.  Philosophy  a  marked  Exception. — But 
if  Homer  can  thus  be  exhibited  as  the  father  of  Greek 
letters  in  most  of  their  branches,  there  is  one  great 
exception,    which    belongs    to  a   later   development. 


xiii.]  HOMER  THE  POET.  153 

That  exception  was  the  philosophy  of  Greece ; 
which  seems  to  have  owed  its  first  inception  to  the 
Asiatic  contact  established  after  the  great  eastern 
migration.  The  absence  of  all  abstract  or  metaphy- 
sical ideas  from  Homer  is  truly  remarkable.  Of  all 
poets  he  is  the  most  objective,  and  the  least  specu- 
lative. Of  the  impersonated  Unseen  no  poet  has 
made  such  effective  employment;  of  the  Unseen, 
except  as  connected  with  impersonation,  he  never  I 
think  makes  use,  unless  on  two  occasions ;  one  (vol. 
vii.  36)  where  the  ships  of  the  Phaiakes  are  as  swift 
as  a  wing,  or  as  a  thought;  and  the  other  when 
he  compares  the  agitated  mind  of  Hera  with  the 
quickened  intelligence  of  a  man  stimulated  and 
informed  by  much  travel  (//.  xv.  30).  The  nearest 
approach  to  these  cases  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in 
such  passages  as  the  reflection  of  Achilles  on  the 
mixed  dispensation  of  life,  and  its  prepondering  sad- 
ness. But  this  is  incorporated  thought.  Two  caskets 
are  on  the  floor  of  heaven  :  the  contents  are  respect- 
ively good  and  evil.  From  them  Zeus  dispenses  the 
mixed  fortunes  of  some,  and  the  unmixed  misery 
of  others.  Homer  was  not  an  optionist.  But  neither 
did  he  multiply  gratuitous  perplexities.  The  contro- 
versies of  materialism  were  unknown  to  him.  All  the 
wodd,  all  life,  all  experience,  filled  his  magazine ; 
for  him  mind  and  matter  had  suffered  no  breach  of 
harmony.  Human  life  had  an  aspect  mostly  sad  :  but 
the  universe,  as  to  its  general  constitution,  was  still 
iniune. 


THE    END. 


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